


in a better life you led

by crownedcarl



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Background Case, Case Fic, Developing Friendships, Dwight Hendrickson centric, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Jealousy, M/M, Miscommunication, Pining, Sexual Tension, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Troubles (Haven)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:07:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 28,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22902946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownedcarl/pseuds/crownedcarl
Summary: Dwight fixes things.It's what he does.
Relationships: Audrey Parker/Nathan Wuornos, Duke Crocker & Audrey Parker & Nathan Wuornos, Duke Crocker/Dwight Hendrickson, Dwight Hendrickson & Audrey Parker, Dwight Hendrickson & Nathan Wuornos
Comments: 31
Kudos: 31





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The National. If you're up for a relatively slow burn between Dwight and Duke that segues into a casefic about midway through and takes care to give everyone the screentime they deserve, you're in luck, because this is the fic for you! This will likely span three chapters and will include Dwight being a pet parent, Duke and Dwight figuring out how to care for one another and a good sprinkling of detective work throughout the chapters.
> 
> Tags will be updated with every new chapter. I cannot stress this enough: as much as I'm writing for myself and to get my vision out of my head and onto AO3, I depend on comments for feedback and constructive criticism. please, please, please let me know what you thought of this and if there's anything you'd like to see in future chapters! ❤
> 
> Check out my [other Haven fics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownedcarl/pseuds/crownedcarl/works?fandom_id=9218791)!
> 
> I'm on [tumblr](https://dickardgansey.tumblr.com)!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dwight has never been able to walk away from anyone or anything in need. He's not about to start, now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 1 has been updated as of 01.05.2020/May 1st 2020. Syntax, grammar and spelling errors have been fixed, in addition to the last scene being updated.

Dwight's eyes are heavy with sleep by the time he's able to officially clock out for the day, waving a mellow goodbye to Stan as he exits the PD. It's been raining a steady drizzle for the past couple of days, but the sky hangs low and forebodingly overcast during Dwight’s walk to the car as he starts methodically packing away his tools and equipment in the trunk before allowing himself a sip of the lukewarm coffee Nathan had passed to him before he left the station. It goes down sharp and bitter, the sludge pooling at the bottom and precariously clinging to the rim of the mug, making Dwight grimace as he climbs into the car. He starts peering out the windshield as the clouds grow a little darker, rain starting to come down harder all around him.

The promotion from cleaner to chief has not been a smooth one. The transition has been bumpy; Dwight leaving to work above the law had left an opening that nobody quite knew how to fill, which means he's pulling double duty. Today, clocking out after a measly thirteen hours of work - that was a miracle, all things considered.

It's not a long drive home but it is a dark and slow one, considering the twists and turns and how the asphalt is quickly turning slick with rain. Dwight takes every turn slow and steady, turning on the radio once he passes the five mile mark of the drive, humming along to Blue Öyster Cult and tapping out a beat on the dashboard with his free hand. His phone lights up with a message in the passenger's side seat, but Dwight leaves it there for now, figuring if it _was_ an emergency, whoever knew to contact him would have the foresight to call if it was urgent.

The clock ticks past midnight, the letters looking blurry when Dwight checks the time. The music drowns out the rain for a little while as Dwight continues driving in the darkness, headlights illuminating the dark strip of road just up ahead.

At the junction, Dwight slows down to a crawl, taking care to look in both directions - one road leads up to old man Owen's farm, the other taking a scraggly turn into the woods. He's handled enough accidents out here to pace himself, watching for any errant late-night drivers, pushing ahead as the car fills with cheerful singing, _WE CAN BE LIKE THEY ARE, SO COME ON BABY, DON'T FEAR THE REAPER..._

Before he can execute the turn properly, his headlights illuminating the empty field, something catches beneath the tire and jams. Dwight pauses as he pulls up to a stop, hearing the unmistakable noise of something dragging behind the wheel. Whatever it is, he figures he can't leave it, then sighs deeply as he puts his head briefly in his hands and tries to muster up the energy to get back to his feet. By the time he sat down in the car just ten minutes earlier, Dwight felt as if he could never find his footing again, legs burning with exhaustion, but up he gets, anyway, rummaging for his flashlight in his bag, reaching for the lump in the back seat.

"Just my luck," he tells himself, shaking his head, slowly pulling up the hood on his jacket as he steps into the rain. "What," he murmurs, "Do we have here?"

_BABY, TAKE MY HAND..._

He squats down, aiming the flashlight behind the front right tire, cocking his head for a better look. There's a long cord tangled up in there and it's tangled in there properly, by Dwight's assessment, a wan smile curving his mouth at the discovery. "Today," he mumbles to himself, "Is not shaping up to be my day at all."

It's a long cord - rope, actually, Dwight surmises, the length of it frayed in some places and matted with mud and clumps of grass in others. He pulls on his glove before giving the rope a tug, realizing it's gotten wrapped all the way around, so he settles on his knees to steady himself while he tries to force the rope free from the tire, pausing when he realizes what he thought was mud is coming off in big red flakes on his hands, blood staining the length of rope wrapped around his fingers. "Jesus," Dwight exhales, briefly struck speechless, taking a surreptious glance around at the empty field. When he finally frees the tangled mess from the car, it reveals a length of chain clipped on to the end. Dwight figures that's what caused the scraping noise he kept hearing, padlock included.

He's not worried about why there's rope stuck in his tire. Dwight's worried about what was stuck to the _rope_ stained with blood. His heart sinks a little when he realizes there's animal hair clinging to the blood, too.

"Who the hell does this?" Dwight asks himself, rising to his feet and tossing the rope into the grass, carefully descending the slope towards the creek that runs parallel to the road. "Jesus, that’s brutal."

Talking to himself isn't a coping mechanism, exactly, but if nothing else, it lets Dwight feel calmer. Haven at night can be a frightening place to be by yourself, these days.

What he finds lying in the ditch damn near breaks his heart. He can hear labored breath as he spots a dark, small shape huddled by the bushes, taking in the battered shape of a dog with a crooked leg laying there, eyes almost all white when it spots Dwight approaching. Despite the bone-deep exhaustion Dwight can't quite shake, he can't walk away from this, either. "Hey," he whispers, keeping his voice calm, "I'm a friend, promise. I'm not here to hurt you."

He gets a weak snarl for the assurance. Dwight still edges a little closer, careful not to slip in the mud. The dog's fur is matted so badly that Dwight can tell even in the darkness and with the mud covering it that it's been neglected for a long time, his heart squeezing painfully in his chest at the sight. "I'm here to help you," he sighs, realizing the dog can barely raise its head, much less make a real effort to warn Dwight away. All it does in the end is whine like wounded animals do, breathing heavily, flinching and barking when Dwight moves the scruff of its neck aside, getting a good look at the wound where the rope had practically sawed into the skin. Dwight's seen worse, but he's seen better, too.

"Who left you out here?" he wonders, trying to find a way to gather the dog in his arms without causing any more suffering, "Who the hell _could?"_

Dwight has never been able to walk away from anyone or anything in need. He's not about to start, now. He hopes the emaciated creature in his arms understands that he's trying to help and that he doesn't get bitten for his efforts when he carefully starts making his way back up the slope, wincing at the smell of _sickness_ that he inhales, knowing the dog doesn't have long left without help. By the time he makes it back to the car, the rain's coming down harder than before and Dwight can't quite figure out how to gently lay the dog down, wincing apologetically when he slides it across the leather seats, quickly grabbing the fire blanket in the trunk to lay down over the trembling, scraggly thing. "I got you," Dwight says, "Trust me, it can only go up from here."

He can't figure out who'd do something like this. Out here, neighbors are few and far between, but Dwight can't think of anyone nearby who'd treat a dog this way and then up and dump one like trash, leaving it to die. He sits on the question for a little while, deciding to file it away for later - whoever did this can wait. The dog can't.

He spots a pair of wary eyes watching him from the backseat. "I know that look," Dwight says, turning the key in the ignition, "Seen it before. I won't hurt you. I did promise."

It's late. He'll be lucky if he manages to get four hours of sleep, all things considered, but tomorrow, his first pit-stop of the day is going to be to get the dog checked out. It huddles in the backseat, shivering relentlessly, staying eerily quiet while Dwight gets them both safely home through the rain and the wind that's started to howl all around them. He tries to be quick about loading the dog out of the car and inside the house, but it's no easy thing maneuvering an animal that has every reason not to trust him. Dwight murmurs “I hope you don’t bite me. But I get it if you do. Still won’t be happy about it, though,” and as he finishes gathering the dog into his arms as carefully as possible, he ends up sighing in quiet relief when it lets Dwight carry it inside with minimal hassle. He realizes, after he’s closed and locked the door, that he doesn’t know what to do next.

Eventually, with the dog held securely against his chest, Dwight frees one hand to create a makeshift bed out of the couch cushions and a couple of blankets, setting the dog down in the plush pile and watching for any sign of discomfort. It bares its teeth when Dwight adjusts one of the pillows, fingers brushing matted fur. “I get it,” he promises, backing up and going into the kitchen and rummaging for the plastic bowls he hasn’t used in ages.

By the time Dwight gets up the stairs and sits down on the edge of the bed to remove his socks, the dog's gone quiet downstairs. Dwight left out a bowl of water and some leftover meatballs for it, but despite knowing he's done what he's supposed to, Dwight can't seem to fall asleep once he’s beneath the covers, staring up at the ceiling when the minutes tick by and his stomach keeps tying itself in knots. Eventually, he ventures back downstairs, barefoot and shirtless, to find the dog raising its head slowly at the sight of him. "Don't mind me," Dwight mumbles, settling down on the couch and dragging the blanket he brought downstairs up to his chin, "I'm a sucker for lost causes. Go back to sleep."

He gets a low growl in response before the dog quiets down, huffing a resigned sigh, conceding defeat, breath slowly evening out as it falls asleep.

First thing in the morning - bar coffee and a shower - Dwight drives himself and the dog up to Ross DeLaney’s farm.

DeLaney is a jovial and graying man who worked twenty good years as a veterinarian before unofficially retiring to Haven five years ago, but Dwight knows Ross won’t turn him away once he sees what Dwight’s dealing with, here. He's walking slowly past the pig pen and the pasture with the dog cradled in his arms, being greeted by Linda as he ascends the steps on the porch, her thin frame immediately radiating concern when Dwight tells her he found the dog in bad shape over by the junction a couple of miles back.

“Shame what people do to animals,” she mutters, shaking her head. “I’ll get Ross, you just go ahead and wait in the exam room.”

Even retired, Ross was never quite able to shake his desire to help. Old habits, Dwight figures. By the time Ross enters the room on Linda’s urgent recommendation, he’s frowning as if he’s going to lecture Dwight on not disturbing a retired man who just wants some peace and quiet, but once Ross spots the shivering bundle of dirty fur that Dwight has in his arms, Ross relaxes.

Before Dwight can apologize for barging in without notice, anyway, Ross is grabbing his gloves and telling Dwight to place the dog on the table. “I don’t do this anymore,” he mumbles, “Keep telling you people, but who listens?”

“If I recall correctly,” Dwight points out, “You owe me a favor.”

“Right, right,” Ross agrees, grinning a little. "Owe you a lot of favors. You want coffee, go ahead and head into the kitchen. I’ll get the exam underway.”

Dwight doesn’t really want coffee - he had a cup and a half before he left the house - but he knows Ross works best when he’s left alone, so Dwight ducks into the kitchen and makes a pot for himself and Linda, listening to her talk about the work that needs doing around the farm. She offers him the job on the fence, if he’d like it, adding “You always seem to take care to do it right.”

It makes Dwight smile just a little. “I try my best,” he allows, nodding at the length of fence he can see from the kitchen window. “You let me know how many yards, total, and I’ll get around to it. Basic repair and reinforcement?”

She nods, scribbling down an estimate on a notepad before handing Dwight the folded piece of paper. “Any time before Christmas,” she sighs. “Don’t want you to catch a cold, working out in the fields.”

Dwight laughs and nods along, eventually slinking back into the exam room, coffee and conversation finished. He nods at Ross, who’s wearing surgical gloves while he palpates the stomach, the dog yipping once, seemingly grateful when Ross moves on to the remainder of the examination. The crooked leg doesn’t look as bad in this light, but the raw skin around its neck makes Dwight feel awful for what the dog’s been through.

“He’s not chipped,” Ross tells him, “Far as I can tell, he was tied up and left to die. These wounds, I figure he got himself loose, but he didn’t get far. It’s lucky you found him when you did, son.”

“How do you figure?” Dwight asks, watching Ross work, his capable hands rubbing the tender neck area clean with an alcohol-soaked solution. It hasn’t even been a full day since he picked the dog up and nothing seems to be getting any easier - he still hasn’t earned its trust, which would be fine if not for the fact that the dog takes to Ross DeLaney with no apparent issues. He shrugs in response to Dwight’s question, broad shoulders loose and relaxed.

“You see wounds like these in one type of case, usually. People put a collar on a puppy and don’t replace it before the neck outgrows the collar. He’s been neglected, but he’s not snapping and yapping, so he’s used to humans, as far as I can tell. The thing is,” Ross sighs, “He was somebody’s. Somebody’s puppy and they did this to the damn thing. It makes no sense, you ask me. It makes no sense at all.”

The collar - Dwight catches sight of the basic, blue collar fastened around the neck, carefully avoiding the wound Ross is in the process of wrapping in gauze, Dwight cocking his head in question as to why the collar’s there. “You need to take him home, somehow,” Ross comments, as if it’s a given. “Figured I’d do the hard part for you.”

“I can’t take care of a dog,” Dwight murmurs even while he’s nodding absently, listening to Ross grumble that well, neither can he. Dwight watches the dog’s big head shifting on the table, growling when his crooked leg is jostled. “And the leg?” Dwight asks, peering at Ross, “It’s broken, isn’t it?”

“Been broken a long time, in that case,” Ross chortles, “Could be a fracture that never healed right. I won’t know what to do with it until he’s up and walking. Have to assess if it’s causing pain. Not that I’m a practicing vet,” he reminds Dwight in a pointed tone, “But I figure we give it a little time and track the progress.”

"By we," Dwight points out, "You mean me."

This battered dog used to be somebody’s, Dwight thinks to himself, handing Ross the scissors when he’s asked to, privately wondering what’s going to happen next. “You’re taking him,” Ross says, steamrolling past Dwight’s lingering unease to add “I don’t have the room, right now. Daisy's puppies and all. He needs a home. Something stable.”

Dwight snorts, scratching a restless hand across his stubble. “With me?” he questions, grimacing. “Doc, come on. You know what I do. I’m barely home, as it is. I can’t take care of a dog.”

“Sure you can,” Ross insists, smiling a little, patting the dog’s head briefly before moving away to wash his hands. “You could use a break, too, you know. Start by naming him. I’ve got another collar just his size, somewhere…something a little more sturdy for when he’s all healed up and ready to be a proper dog again.”

Dwight says “I don’t know any good names,” and keeps an eye on the dog while Ross retreats into the other room, searching for a collar and leash. “I don’t…”

Inevitably, his mind goes back a handful of years. Lizzie always wanted a dog. She begged on birthdays and cried on Christmas but she never got the dog she kept asking for. She used to insist that she would take great care of it, that there would never ever be a problem - and she wanted to name it, even going so far as drawing a picture with a nondescript dark blob wearing a collar, proudly announcing its name to be Rascal. Where she got the name, Dwight has no idea, but it takes root in his chest, now.

He doesn’t struggle with the tears, anymore, when he thinks about her. Dwight is solemn and matter of fact when he mutters “Rascal. His name’s Rascal,” to an approving nod from a returning Ross, hearing him humming while he opens and closes a couple of drawers, somehow knowing not to comment on the name. He thinks it’s fitting, considering the state of his couch when he came back from his shower earlier this morning to be met with a dog who clearly knew the art of ignoring his own mess, lounging languidly in his burrow of blankets, leaving Dwight to clean up what was left of the throw pillow the dog had eviscerated.

Ross packs him a plastic bag of essentials, handing it over with an approving smile. It feels oddly paternal.

“You’re a smart man,” Ross chuckles, handing Dwight the leash while he goes about checking the collar, making sure it isn’t too tight and staring Rascal down with a firm gaze until the growling stops. “Walk him regularly, clean the wound with the solution and make sure he’s eating. Be back in two weeks, we’ll check his progress. You gotta earn his trust,” Ross adds, hands on his hips, nodding at Rascal who’s slowly and timidly sniffing the leash Dwight placed on the examination table. “He’s skittish. Take it slow. Don’t want to get bit, you know?”

“Yeah, doc,” Dwight sighs, “I hear you. Alright.”

He’s never had a pet. He knows how to ride a horse but he’s never been responsible for the life of an animal that was wholly his and dependent on him, but he’s faced impossible tasks, before. Dwight has to take it in stride, taking a step back and watching Ross help Rascal down off the table, the old man mumbling “Rascal. He’ll get used to it, eventually,” when Rascal gives him a look that seems to imply he’s mostly annoyed at the name. “...probably.”

It makes Dwight laugh, something loosening a little in his chest. “Well, he’s not staying with me forever,” he points out, “Whoever gets to take him home afterwards, they can give him a better name. It’s Rascal, for now.”

That seals the deal, judging by Ross's crooked grin. He shakes his head with an amused laugh and hurries Dwight out the door, leaving him fumbling with the dog in his arms, the two of them exchanging a glance that's mutually wary. "Well," Dwight finally says, cradling the dog - Rascal, he reminds himself - carefully in his arms. "I guess we're in this together, now."

He’s had Rascal for a week and a half by the time it happens, the way it always happens.

Lizzie’s birthday never comes as a surprise. Dwight doesn’t mark it on the calendar anymore, but he wakes up on the pale, cold morning of November the 18th and realizes that he can’t get out of bed, his limbs heavy beneath the covers, his head pounding as his eyes fixate on a thin strip of light poking through the opening in the curtains. His phone buzzes insistently, telling him to get up and go to work, but Dwight dismisses his alarms with the last bit of strength he has left, burying his face in the pillow once the room goes quiet again. Silence and darkness; that's all he can handle, right now.

An hour later, by Dwight’s estimate, there’s a familiar ruckus coming from the ground floor as Rascal wakes up and takes to inspecting all corners of the house for his breakfast, whining and barking when he finds none waiting for him. That's on Dwight.

It’s a long way up the stairs. Rascal is barking insistently at the bottom, still skittish and still unwilling to brave the stairs and make his way to Dwight’s bedroom and into the great unknown, but Dwight can't get up. He can't get down those stairs, today.

Rascal needs to eat, Dwight tells himself. He needs to be let outside. Dwight knows as much but he can’t seem to get up, no matter how he tries, crushed under a heavy weight he brought on himself. His body feels made of lead that’s holding him down, every inch of him gone sluggish, his fingers curled into the pillow and his eyes feeling dry when he rolls over and keeps on staring at his bedroom door, willing himself to do something, unable to muster the strength.

Rascal keeps barking. It sounds more panicked every time.

He can’t help Lizzie, Dwight thinks, closing his eyes. He can’t help himself out of this pit either, but there’s a dog downstairs that Dwight _can_ do something for. He can do that much, even if it takes a long time to go through the motions of getting out of bed; sitting up, slinging his legs over the edge, planting his feet and standing up, the entire task broken down into small, simple steps, making the struggle incrementally easier. “Yeah,” Dwight murmurs, hearing Rascal whine, “I’m coming, buddy.”

He checks his phone and sends a text to Nathan. Before he goes downstairs, Dwight leaves it on the bedside table. He’s in no mood to talk to anyone today. Nobody that can talk back, at least.

It feels strange, how the stairs take twice as long as usual to get down. Dwight feels at once weightless and too heavy, stumbling on the bottom step, barely avoiding crashing into Rascal who at least has the good sense to quickly dance out of the way. His dark, curious eyes follow Dwight as he makes it into the kitchen, digging in the cabinet for the kibble Ross recommended and Dwight absently ends up pouring a little too much in the bowl, unable to control his shaking hands.

“There you go,” Dwight mumbles, turning on the tap and refilling the water bowl, heading across the living room and back towards the stairs, needing another few hours of sleep. Needing another century of it, if he’s honest.

Rascal barks - sharply. Insistently. Dwight frowns and slowly turns around, seeing Rascal tilting his funny-looking head and hearing him bark once more, seating himself carefully on the rug leading out of the kitchen. He looks at Dwight as if he’s done something wrong, big ears standing upright. “Did I forget something?” Dwight questions, shaking his head with a small laugh. “Jesus, I’m making polite conversation with a dog. You don’t even like me, remember?”

Rascal huffs, bristling all over. He barks again, only quieting down when Dwight moves back into the kitchen to examine what’s wrong, Rascal instantly starting to eat once Dwight gets too close for comfort. “Trust me, I don’t want it,” he sighs, seeing the food and water dishes both filled to the brim, trying to make his exit out of the kitchen for a second time.

Once again, Rascal barks. He stops eating to stare at Dwight. “...you want me to stay?” he asks slowly, trying to piece together what his life has become. “You really need me to watch you eat?”

Rascal sniffs, very delicately pawing at Dwight’s leg. It’s the fact that it’s not aggressive that surprises Dwight, observing as Rascal paws at him one more time before he then sticks his whole muzzle into the food dish, glancing at Dwight all the while, trying to communicate something Dwight can’t put his finger on. It occurs to him that maybe, maybe, Rascal wants him to eat, too.

It seems ridiculous, but Dwight slowly opens the fridge and grabs the milk, watching Rascal all the while and seeing his tense back slowly begin to relax when Dwight settles at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal, resting his chin on his hand as a tiny smile begins to bloom on his face.

“I’ve got you, huh?” Dwight asks, watching Rascal eat, watching as he keeps flicking his gaze to Dwight to make sure he’s eating, too. If it wasn’t for the dog, Dwight wouldn’t have gotten out of bed today. It’s a strange thing, realizing that the most important relationship in his life, as of right now, is to a dog who barely tolerates him on the best of days.

Dwight shakes his head and digs unenthusiastically into his cereal as he tries not to smile, taking a moment to listen to the howling of the wind outside as the trees shudder, warning Dwight of the upcoming storm.

Dwight gets confirmation of his earlier suspicions when his phone lights up with an alert, later in the afternoon, relaying a yellow warning for snow for the entire county. The notification sits on his phone, gravely informing him of the severity of the storm and urging anyone who can to stay indoors and stay warm, because the storm only looks to be getting worse.

Dwight glances outside, wondering how Nathan and Audrey are doing and wondering what’s happening in Haven. He wonders if this is trouble-related, but quickly dismisses that thought; no trouble has ever worked on this large of a scale. It’s just a freak storm, which is not as rare as he’d like for it to be.

He’ll be fine, in any case. There’s firewood stacked on the porch, more still to be found in the shed. Rascal’s snug in his nest of blankets and pillows and Dwight languidly tosses a few more logs on the fire, double-checking that all the windows are locked and secured when the wind starts to rattle the panes. He feels guilty, deep down, that he isn’t around to help in town - that there might be people in need that he's abandoning, but Dwight tells himself that the town can function without him for a day. He tells himself that it would do more harm than good for him to make the attempt at driving into town, at this point. The guilt still lingers.

He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. Dwight doesn’t take days off. He doesn’t know what to do without a task waiting to be completed and the impending emptiness of the evening leaves him feeling restless and uneasy, finally settling for turning on the radio while doing the dishes by hand, humming along to the songs he knows, listening to the greatest hits of the ‘80s.

It’s calming, having a task and fulfilling it. It makes Dwight feel useful, like he can still fix _something_. Rascal seems to like the music, too. He starts snoring after a few minutes, Dwight biting down a smile as he sinks his arms into the water all the way up to his elbows, scrubbing at a pot.

Around the time that the wind really starts picking up, there’s a frantic knocking at the door. Rascal lifts his head up off his folded paws, growling low and steady as he glances to Dwight as if to ask _are we angry about this?_ while Dwight wonders the same thing, unsure of who’d be dropping by at this time of day, in this weather, with the warnings having been put out hours ago.

“Yeah,” Dwight decides, glancing at Rascal, “We’re calm, for now. Who is it?” he asks, raising his voice to be heard over the wind, wiping his hands dry on his pants.

He’s barely able to make out the half-shouted and tense “It’s Duke! You wanna let me in before I freeze to death out here?”

Dwight glances down at himself and abruptly halts on his way to the door, suddenly realizing he hasn’t changed out of pajamas since he dragged himself down the stairs in the morning, knowing he hasn’t shaved, knowing he hasn’t taken the time to shower. It isn’t how he wants to present himself to anyone, much less to Duke of all people. Business casual is about as relaxed as Dwight has ever gotten around Duke. This is new ground Dwight isn't ready to tread.

He’s supposed to be better than his demons, Dwight reminds himself, briefly hesitating before he takes the last five steps and quickly unlocking and unlatching the door, swinging it open wide and finding a brightly smiling Duke on his porch, snowflakes dusting his hair. His cheeks are pink from the cold and he’s holding a big plastic storage container in his arms, every inch of him shaking almost comically, something metallic jingling in the box when Duke shifts its weight against his chest.

“Duke,” Dwight greets him, stepping aside and hauling Duke across the doorstep, tossing him into the warmth of Dwight’s kitchen. “How can I help you?”

He’s curious about the container, eyeing it while Duke shivers and leaves a puddle of water pooling on the polished kitchen floor. Rascal is curious too, judging by how he’s slinking around Duke’s legs, pushing his nose against the underside of the container, not growling or yipping when Duke absently pets the top of his head while he tries to find somewhere to place the container that, from appearance alone, seems filled to the brim.

Dwight can now see that it’s marked _DONATIONS_ in a hurried scrawl, not Duke’s own handwriting. He wonders if it’s strange that he knows that. “For me?” he asks, his voice dry. “You shouldn’t have.”

Duke’s rolling his eyes and pushing his hair off of his forehead, his hands trembling all the while. There’s a thin coating of snow melting in his eyebrows and lashes, his hands bright red from standing out in the frigid weather for too long. “Much as I love you, sasquatch,” he chuckles, “It’s for the dog. Ross asked me to run these to you.”

It checks out, all things considered, if Dwight really stops to think about it - not too hard, though, because Duke doesn’t drop by to see Dwight. He never has and he never will. There’s no reason to be upset about it, in all honesty, considering that the two of them have never really been friends, but it does blister on top of the other open wounds Dwight’s been dealing with all damn day, his mouth going tight when he nods and says “I appreciate it. You got winter tires on, yet?”

Duke's here for the dog. Of course he doesn't know, Dwight reminds himself, how heavy of a burden today is.

Switching the subject works wonders. Duke’s whole face creases with slowly dawning realization. “No,” he admits, scratching the back of his head, “I thought I’d be able to beat the snow. I might’ve miscalculated.”

“No shit,” Dwight murmurs, slowly parting the curtain above the sink and wincing when he sees where Duke must have parked in a hurry. The road already looks a little too piled up with snow for his comfort, but Duke will hardly be able to get far in a truck with summer tires, especially considering the way the windshield is already whited-out with snow and frost.

“What’s so important you had to come straight away?” Dwight asks eventually, brushing off the snow when he pops the top of the container off and watches as Duke settles in a chair at the table, making kissing noises at Rascal and looking offended when Rascal simply chooses to stare at Duke without moving any closer. “Seriously, Duke, what…”

Trailing off, Dwight picks up a squeaky toy from the heap he finds in the container. He finds out about that particular feature by accident, captivating Rascal’s attention with a well-timed squeak, watching as Rascal starts trotting over to sniff at the rubber toy before barking and happily taking it in his jaws before scampering off to play by the couch. “Dog toys,” Dwight sighs, glancing at Duke. “Toys and...treats. You and the doc really don’t trust me to take care of him, do you?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Duke immediately protests, rolling his eyes. “You’re a busy guy. Figured you could use the help.”

It irks Dwight, that word. “Not a charity case,” he says, his voice coming out clipped. He softens a little as he listens to Rascal playing, the squeaks of him destroying his toy filling the entire living room. “He seems to appreciate it, though. Do you want coffee? You look like a drowned rat, to tell you the truth.”

Duke’s shivering beneath the big, plaid jacket he’s huddled into, his dark eyes lighting up when Dwight suggests coffee. He’s already gotten started on a new pot when Duke quietly mumbles “Thanks, squatch,” with a tremble running through his voice. Duke winces and rubs his hands together between his thighs, one leg bouncing up and down, watching Rascal chase his toy around with his tail thumping against the couch.

“Off,” Dwight eventually says when he places a steaming cup of coffee in front of Duke, tugging at the collar of Duke’s too-thin jacket, melting snow clinging to his fingers. “It’s soaked almost all the way through. Take it off, I’ll get you a sweater.”

Duke makes an attempt at stumbling through a joke about Dwight being his knight in shining armor, but his teeth are chattering too much to finish the sentence. He does get out of his jacket, revealing that he’s wearing a thin henley and a rough cardigan beneath, gratefully accepting the large, grey-knit sweater Dwight ends up getting him from upstairs. Duke slips into the sweater with a shiver and a thank you, tremors wracking his body, Duke slowly tugging the sleeves down past his knuckles.

It’s howling outside, the storm raging on. “Better?” Dwight asks Duke, reaching for his own cup of coffee, left waiting for him on the counter.

“Sure am,” Duke agrees, eyeing Dwight carefully, “How about you?”

“What,” Dwight asks, taking his eyes off of Duke and busying himself with the methodical wiping down of the sink, “I take one day off and you plan an intervention? I’m alright, Duke. Really.”

After the text he sent Nathan earlier that day, he received one back eventually. Nathan had wondered if something had happened, asking Dwight where he was, which is standard fare for the two of them but Dwight can’t remember anyone ever coming around on such a flimsy pretense to check on him like Duke’s doing tonight. He's bringing Dwight dog toys in a snowstorm and making sure that Dwight is alright by coming by to see him in person - that's not something Dwight would except from even old friends, much less whatever he and Duke are to each other.

It might not even be an excuse, Dwight reminds himself, but he can’t see Ross being at all able to convince Duke into doing something he doesn’t want to. It’s a dangerous train of thought, Dwight tells himself, busying himself with sorting the toys and the bags of treats out on the counter. There’s a lot there. It feels like an unbearably selfless gesture, all of a sudden.

“Of course you’re alright,” Duke agrees, his voice a little too cheerful. “You’re always alright, aren’t you?”

Dwight pauses, frowning. He can’t decide if that’s a jab at him or not. Shaking his head, he decides to let it go, not wanting to start something today when he’s still stuck feeling too heavy for his body, still thinking of Lizzie’s warm hand in his own, startling when Rascal suddenly nudges his knee with his warm muzzle. He’s staring up at Dwight with a neutral expression before barking once, turning his head in the direction of the kitchen. “You hungry again?”

Rascal perks up at the word hungry. He’s learning quickly, trailing Dwight while he pours the kibble before slowly settling at the table with Duke, shrugging once as he nods at the snow falling outside. “You can’t head home in that,” Dwight tells him, knowing Duke won’t like being stuck out here with him of all people, on a Friday night. “I can drive you home when it’s over if it eases up sometime tonight. Until then, guess we’re playing polite guest and benevolent host.”

“You don’t think I’m polite?” Duke grins, “After I went and brought you all this for the dog, risking life and limb in the process? That wasn’t selfless enough for you?”

Selfless. It’s kind of funny, Dwight thinks, how Duke can claim it and not believe it, all at once, casting himself as the bad guy in his own anecdotes and stories. He’s always thought of himself as the bad guy, Dwight realizes, but he doesn’t let himself dwell on that right now, choosing instead to sit in a silence that’s mostly comfortable, not knowing what to say, anyway.

He never really knows what to say around Duke, partly because their interactions have always been sparse, unless you count that volatile first time where Dwight was hurting and curious and opened up too much, talking about family and knowing that Duke would be able to relate.

He doesn’t talk about family anymore. He doesn’t have any left to talk about.

It occurs to him, then, that Duke hasn’t asked why Dwight stayed home today. All he told Nathan through that first text was that he was taking a personal day, which he didn’t really have to disclose to begin with. It was a courtesy he owed Nathan, nothing more, because Dwight has stepped into Nathan's shoes and after running the PD for a while, he thinks he understands why Nathan was happy to step back, why he's tried to check in. Being the chief means he's not on anyone’s payroll, because even in his capacity as cleaner, Dwight usually gets what he needs from the Guard when he needs it, as long as they’re working towards the common goal of protecting troubled people and covering up unexplainable events.

Beyond that, he has nobody to answer to and nobody who’s indebted to check up on him. The fact that it’s Duke, of all people, makes him nervous in a way Dwight hasn’t experienced in years.

“Doesn’t seem to be letting up,” Duke comments eventually, looking out the window with a contemplative spark in his dark eyes. “Guess you’re right about me having to stay. Didn’t mean to intrude on your day off.”

It isn’t quite an apology. Duke doesn’t do apologies, as far as Dwight knows, but it’s comforting, knowing Duke thinks he owes Dwight at least an explanation for barging in. “It’s fine,” Dwight tells him and shrugs slightly. “Can’t do anything about it, now. I was going to head to bed soon, though. Don’t think it’s safe for either of us to be driving in this weather. It’s piled up another inch just since you came inside. It’s a slumber party,” Dwight chuckles, “You, me and the dog from hell.”

Duke glances at him, almost smiling, something sly in the curve of his mouth. “Really?” he asks. “You’re going to leave me to entertain myself after everything I went through to get here, huh?”

Snorting, Dwight murmurs “I’m sure you’ll find something to do. You won’t die of boredom.”

“Nah,” Duke agrees. “Not when you’ve got a huge TV and a comfortable couch, I won’t. You mind if I watch something?”

Dwight doesn’t, so he gets started on cleaning up the last of the dishes in the kitchen while Duke wanders over to the couch and starts flipping through the channels, lounging with his legs stretched out, finally electing to watch American Horror Story after a few minutes of consideration. He sees the grimace Dwight gives him once the episode has started, grinning widely in response.

“Really?” Dwight asks, hip propped against the counter while he squints at the screen, “You don’t get your regular dose of the weird and uncanny from this town, already?”

“Aw, come on,” Duke protests, “This is the best season so far, even if that’s kind of a low bar to clear. None of the plot makes any sense, the acting is terrible and the effects are just...see, I don’t even have the words to describe it. Watch with me,” he suddenly suggests, as if he’s doing a good job of selling Dwight on the plot, “I genuinely cannot allow you to go to bed at 10PM, man. That’s just sad.”

After a beat, Duke breaks eye contact to grimace at the screen and then noisily sighs “Here we go with the flashbacks! Honestly, if the flashbacks are more interesting than the present _that you’re spending most of your time on,_ is your show even good to begin with?”

It doesn’t matter if going to bed at this hour is sad or not, because Dwight is still tired. He does end up hesitating while standing on the threshold into the living room, finally relenting with a quiet sigh before he walks over and settles on the opposite end of the couch across from Duke, leaving plenty of space between the two of them. It’s been a long time since he had a guest and longer since he _wanted_ one, but it’s almost comforting, having the company on a day like this. It eases the ache of losing everything he ever loved. 

“Don’t you worry,” Duke says, grinning slyly, “You can hold my hand if it freaks you out.”

Dwight gives him a flat stare in response while he simultaneously resists the urge to smile. He's sure Duke notices, anyway.

Rascal peers suspiciously at them from the spot where he’s curled up on the plush carpet, his ears flicking back and forth. “My knight in shining armor, huh,” Dwight mutters, stretching his legs out and crossing them at the ankle. “Don’t blame me if I take you up on the offer. I hate clowns.”

Duke laughs, loud and surprised. It fills the entire house, from top to bottom. It lingers in Dwight’s memory through the entire episode and when Duke asks if he’s up for the next one, too, all Dwight can really do is agree, feeling grateful for the company and grateful that Duke stayed.

It’s a little past midnight when Dwight hears the snowcat working its way closer and closer to the house. Duke hears it too, pausing the episode, Randall Myers loudly announcing from his megaphone that the road is cleared, the sound of the plow growing fainter until it disappears completely. Duke makes his exit with quick goodbyes, shooting Dwight a salute and giving Rascal a scratch behind the ears, telling Dwight “That was fun, all things considered,” and walking backwards off the porch, cheerfully announcing “We should do it again, sometime.”

Duke finds out exactly how serious Dwight was when he told him he hated clowns the next weekend.

“Everything you see in this town,” Duke says incredulously, “And it’s _clowns_ that gets you?”

“Shut up,” Dwight groans, barely restraining himself from hugging the pillow in his lap, sitting paralyzed as the shot tracks the aforementioned clown, “Clowns are creepy. _That_ clown is terrifying. You’re giving me nightmares,” he complains.

“It _is_ called American Horror Story,” Duke shrugs, barely refraining from laughing, “What’d you expect?”

Dwight grumbles and flinches and maybe jumps a foot into the air, later, but all the while Duke keeps his teasing good-natured and light. It does the trick of keeping Dwight calm in more ways than one as he shifts in his seat, shooting a glance at Rascal on his other side, grateful for him offering a different kind of comfort.

Dwight drives up to the site of the latest explosion, thankful that it was relatively small in size, all things considered, with the impact leaving only two people with minor injuries. It's still two people too many, but it's better than a real body count.

Audrey gave him the update while he got in the car with Rascal in tow, as if he had always been just one step behind Dwight, fluidly hopping into the backseat and watching curiously out the window on their way into town. It makes the drive easier, Rascal’s presence, how he cocks his head when they drive past the cows and the horses going about their business in their paddocks.

It occurs to Dwight that this might be Rascal’s first real experience of being a normal dog - barking at the other cars, hanging his head out the window with his tongue lolling. It's nice, being able to give him that.

“Oh, cute dog,” Audrey comments once Dwight’s arrived and parked, peering at Rascal through the window that’s still rolled part of the way down, Audrey flinching back a little when Rascal growls and backs up a step to put some distance between himself and her.

“To some,” Dwight allows, offering Audrey a sympathetic smile when her face falls at Rascal’s hostility. “He’s not too friendly, though.”

“He likes Duke,” Audrey comments, shaking her head, “According to him, anyway.”

Dwight hums, following Audrey into the rubble of the service station, surveying what needs to be done first, where the worst of the damage is. “Yeah,” he eventually says, crouching down to inspect the hole in the floor, “Beats me why.”

Her smile is a tiny, fond thing. Dwight’s never going to know her as well as Nathan does, but he understands Audrey Parker, glancing at her with a matching grin despite the chaotic scene around them. It’s another day in Haven. After a while, both of them seem to have gotten used to flitting from disaster to disaster, learning to keep their heads cool and roll with the punches. 

“Barely a day since the last one,” he comments, poking at a pile of collapsed and charred magazines. “Guess we aren’t thinking it’s an accident, this time.”

“No,” Audrey agrees, absently kissing Nathan hello when he wanders inside. Nathan gently squeezes her shoulder before he heads into the back to speak with the shaken owner and assure him that the PD is doing the best that they can. “Cameras were working,” she points out, nodding at the one in the corner of the room. “We’ll know more once we get the tapes processed. Any chance you want to help out with that?”

Dwight grimaces, glancing at her with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t get paid enough for that. In fact,” he adds, rising to his feet, “You don’t pay me at all, do you?”

Audrey rolls her eyes but it’s good-natured. She brushes her bangs off her forehead, sighing “Our company isn’t good enough for you, Dwight?”

He laughs, backing up a step to peer over the counter, finding nothing of interest and turning back to face Audrey with a smirk. “Oh, no, playing third wheel to you lovebirds is up there in my top three favorite pastimes. Just not today. Me and the big guy,” he goes on, nodding towards the car where he left Rascal, “We’ve got obedience training.”

Audrey’s eyebrows go high, a startled laugh leaving her mouth. “Oh, that’s precious,” she coos, “Look at you, being a doting dog parent. My heart could burst.”

She’s teasing him, but Dwight doesn’t mind, bumping his hip against Audrey’s as he moves around her. “Don’t get too cocky, now. You were falling all over yourself to get his attention just a minute ago.”

It makes Audrey flush a little pink. Dwight catches her glancing back towards where Nathan disappeared and sighing. “Yeah, I’d appreciate it if you kept that between us,” she mumbles, admitting “Nathan really wants a dog. _Really_ wants a dog. I’m playing bad cop on this one.”

Dwight’s always had a hard time telling Audrey no. It’s just as hard to tell Nathan no, in his experience and he ends up wincing sympathetically when Audrey sighs. “Hey, you can always visit me and the little terror,” Dwight offers. “He likes everyone more than he likes me.”

“I doubt that,” Audrey laughs, “He’s yours, you know? Dogs know these things.”

It’s only later that he lets himself feel bad about what he said about Duke and how he said it, because Dwight knows it wasn’t true to begin with, him playing dumb when it came to Rascal’s odd devotion to Duke. He understands why Rascal gravitates towards Duke whenever he’s around.

He understands why the damn dog feels safer around Duke than he seems to feel around Dwight, because there’s some truth to that saying about birds of a feather flocking together. There’s something similar about their body language, a familiar echo of distrust to the careful distance Duke puts between himself and the world, how Rascal flinches when Dwight passes too close by him for his comfort. Dwight knows what trauma looks like. He’s seen more than his fair share.

Maybe it’s a harsh indictment of Duke’s character, thinking of him that way. It doesn’t make it any less true, at the end of the day.

A couple of months into the not-fostering he's doing, Rascal is his silent shadow. Nowadays, Dwight can't go anywhere without him. When he comes down the stairs in the morning, Rascal stretches languidly before following at Dwight’s heels into the kitchen, quietly eating his breakfast while Dwight brews a pot of coffee and pours half of it into a thermos, doing his own stretching while he goes through a mental checklist of where he’s needed the most, planning a route that will let him deal with the day’s problems one at a time.

When he opens the door, Rascal has a tendency to disappear around the house and into the backyard for a few minutes, coming back and sniffing the air before climbing into the backseat, nose almost pressed to the window when he starts peering outside to take in the sights. He barks at Alberta Johnson while she’s getting her mail and quiets down while Dwight drives past the pastures and the horses grazing in them, enjoying the peace for however long it’s going to last. It's the little things, Dwight tells himself, that are worth remembering.

Rascal turns his head, staring at Dwight and slowly unwinding to curl up into a ball and closing his eyes. “Finally trust me a little?” Dwight asks, trying not to smile. “Just relax. Big day ahead of us.”

The big day in question is Rascal’s graduation from obedience class. Dwight had wrestled with the idea of not going, but at the end of the day, it _is_ a milestone. Since he started attending it’s been clear as day that Rascal’s learned the commands he needed to - sit and come and stay chief among them - but it’s helped in more ways than that, too. Dwight knows how to navigate Rascal’s needs, now. He’s learned how to interpret a tucked tail and ears standing at attention.

It’s no small feat, convincing the dog he found dying in a ditch to trust him, but Dwight’s getting there. “We worked hard for this,” he tells Rascal as they arrive at the rec center, “You worked hard for this, didn’t you? Yeah, you did,” Dwight laughs, letting Rascal explore outside for a moment, “You’re a good boy, buddy.”

Rascal doesn’t flinch when Dwight reaches out to pet him. He does tense, back going stiff but it’s a step forward, in Dwight’s eyes, after a month of hard work and more than a little exasperation but despite the setbacks, here they are, Rascal walking comfortably at Dwight’s side, letting himself relax and trust Dwight to take care of him.

It's a mutual relationship, by now. Rascal gets his bow and Dwight smiles and makes small talk with the other dog owners there, aware of the polite distance they impose between themselves and Dwight, steering clear of him and his mutt - overheard by a woman carrying a Pomeranian - for reasons all of their own. It doesn't bother Dwight. He's used to existing on the outskirts. Once he gets home, he's practically forgotten all about the encounter, setting himself to the task of fixing that one leaky faucet he never seems to get around to.

At the end of the day, he's faced with a harder task. He mostly gets it right with Rascal. Sometimes, though, Dwight feels like every step forward earns him two steps back, especially when it comes to Rascal's dislike of having his neck touched. “Please?” Dwight needles, crouched down with a hand on Rascal’s back, “If you don’t let me, it’s back to doc’s for you. You want him to do it, instead?”

Rascal’s band aid needs changing and the wound needs cleaning. Dwight wonders what his life has come to, considering that he’s currently in a standoff with a dog, trying to coax Rascal to let him touch the gauze wrapped around his neck without getting bit. “I know it hurts,” Dwight sighs, “It’ll only get worse if you don’t let me clean it, buddy. How about a treat while I get to work?”

After a quick Google search, Dwight rummages through his cabinets and finds the peanut butter, leaving it out and quickly getting to work while Rascal is occupied, his tail wagging relentlessly as he sticks as much of his snout as he can into the jar. It’s no easy task, wrangling a dog that yelps and barks the second Dwight starts cleaning him with the solution Ross provided, but Dwight makes quick work of it, murmuring apologetically and petting Rascal’s head. He thinks he might be more relieved than the damn dog when it’s all over, Dwight sitting back on his haunches and groaning as he stretches his back. His knees creak when he tries to shuffle his feet wider apart.

Rascal peers at him suspiciously before butting his head against Dwight’s hand. “Oh, you don’t hate me?” Dwight chuckles, “Well, that’s nice. Thanks.”

Dwight's always had a hard time letting people help. He's _been_ the helper for so long that handing the reigns over to someone else makes his stomach tie up in knots, but somehow, a dog he found half-dead in a ditch has managed to worm its way into Dwight's life, easing the weight on his shoulders. He wonders, sometimes, who's taking care of who.

When Rascal settles down on the carpet and puts his heavy head on Dwight's thigh, it feels like an accomplishment, like Dwight got something right for the first time in a long, long while.

Dwight makes a note of checking in with Ross, next month. The dog's not there to _stay._

There are ghosts in Haven. Again.

Dwight quickly finds out that this time around, the ghosts aren’t as benevolent as they were last time.

Nathan breaks the news to him with a long face and a twitch in his eyebrow that Dwight figures Nathan isn't aware of. The clock has barely ticked past noon and already, Haven seems to be buckling under the weight of this trouble and the couple of deaths they're dealing with as a result of it.

Frances Dawson had a heart attack when she found her dead father standing in her kitchen, as if she hadn't buried him already. Paul Simmons, on the other hand, had himself such a scare when his recently departed sister appeared in the backseat of his car that he drove himself off the road, sobbing on the gurney where Nathan had interviewed him, the man wearing scrapes and cuts and bruises all over.

"She forgot to pick up his prescription," Nathan remarks about Frances, "Her father developed a preventable blood clot and died as a result. Her sister says she never got over the guilt. And Simmons," Nathan goes on, "Was always close to Angela. No issues that I could find. He did say he was sorry, for being out of state when she passed. Could be they're feeling guilty. Or the ghosts-"

Nathan's voice is disbelieving when he repeats, "These, uh, ghosts might be out for revenge."

Dwight nods and looks over the coroner's report on Robert Dawson as he tries to process the idea of who might be coming for him, today, out of the innumerable suspects. He doesn't think he could handle seeing Lizzie. "Guilt," Dwight echoes, "Is a hard thing to shake, Nathan. We're already up to our necks in this thing. You do the interviews, but you be careful."

There's plenty of people to talk to. Dwight sends Audrey and Nathan to knock on doors while Dwight peruses the stacks of maybe-connections left sitting on his desk, articles that could help him trace this back to a bloodline. It's a blur of monotony until Dwight blinks and flips back a couple of pages, not quite able to put his finger on what caught his attention. Something about theft. Something about a family infighting, losing all their land...

"O'Dougherty," Dwight breathes, looking down at the grave faces in the photos from decades ago. "'Colin cited as saying his brother came back from the dead'..."

What do you know, Dwight thinks to himself; the last surviving member of the clan lives just twenty minutes away, according to public record. Liam has got a lot of explaining to do.

He sets Audrey and Nathan to the task. While the trouble is in their hands, Dwight sets himself to doing the work that's less important, the work people tend to forget - the smaller criminal activity that goes unnoticed when people are dropping like flies, burglaries and break-ins that get overshadowed by troubles. Dwight writes reports until his wrists hurt. It's a good enough distraction.

"We found a way to solve it," Nathan tells him over the phone, eventually. "Should be over by the end of day. We just have to wait it out."

By the time he thinks the trouble has really wrapped itself up and blown over, it's getting closer and closer to midnight. Nathan has kept his ear to the ground and an eye on their suspect while Audrey tried to get the word out, earlier, about how to reason with the ghostly apparitions by telling them the truth, which seemed to be the key to ending the trouble, but it's hours later, now and Dwight is sitting in his car with Rascal dozing in the backseat. He's more than ready to go home, heaving a big sigh of relief at the fact that the day is finally over and that he gets to clock out.

No more deaths, Dwight thinks to himself, is a small victory for Haven today.

It strikes him as particularly odd, though, the fact that he's been spared a visit from beyond the grave, because if anyone's got skeletons in the closet waiting to ambush him, it's Dwight, but he figures that maybe he'll count his blessings, just this once. No sense in looking a gift horse in the mouth.

He’s more than ready to go home and treat himself to a long, hot shower, but before Dwight can turn the key in the ignition, a shadow appears in the passenger seat. “Kid,” Smitty greets him, grinning with broken teeth. “Long time, no see.”

Dwight feels every muscle in his body go tense as Rascal perks up and begins to growl.

“Jacob,” he says, carefully taking stock of the apparition sitting beside him. He looks the same as he did last time, years ago, one eye bloodshot and swollen. He still has the bullet hole through his temple. “What can I do for you?”

“Wrong question,” Smitty chuckles, voice laced with grit, his vocal cords all squeezed to hell. His trachea should’ve been dust, Dwight tells himself, but in Haven, nothing ever quite obeys the laws of physics, does it? Least of all ghosts. “What can _I_ do for _you?”_

“Disappear,” Dwight says plainly, leaning back in his seat, “How about that? Do an old friend a favor?”

“Old friend,” Smitty echoes, his lips moving oddly, peeled back from the gums. Dwight can see where his tongue sits swollen in his mouth. “Am I? Or was I collateral?”

Dwight admits “That, too,” and closes his eyes. It’s not a smart move, but if Smitty wanted to kill him, he had his chance. Just another number on today's body count. “You know it wasn’t my fault. I tried-”

“You didn’t try hard enough!”

Smitty inhales deeply after that explosion, grin sitting rigid on his face. Dwight had used to joke that Smitty would go out smiling, but this wasn’t quite what he had meant by it. “You ever think about me, kid?”

Dwight grimaces, feeling a tug in his gut and an old familiar guilt shivering through him. “Every day,” he murmurs, twisting the knife a little deeper. “I had my orders. I couldn’t have saved you.”

Smitty nods, head moving oddly on his shoulders. He looks like a puppet, nodding like that, running his thick tongue across the remainder of his teeth, the stubs of them. “Why not for me?” Smitty asks, turning to stare at Dwight, an eerie light in his eyes. “Why didn’t your _condition_ help me?”

Dwight used to wonder about that, too, but it’s been over a decade and he still hasn’t found the answers. Why not the dozens of times before Smitty, or the dozens of times afterwards?

Sometimes, he thinks he knows, but telling it to Smitty point-blank feels cruel and ugly and Dwight can’t quite make the words come out. “You know why,” he evades, staring down at his lap. “It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t feel guilty. Not just anything could've triggered it."

“But you did,” Smitty pushes, pointing a crooked finger in Dwight’s face. “You felt guilt. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t eating you alive, would I? Why not me, huh? Why’d you let me die?”

Dwight shudders, pushing a hand into his hair. The parking lot is deserted and even if someone came along, Dwight doubts they’d be able to help him. This, he has to handle alone, no matter the cost. It might even be a relief, Dwight thinks to himself, parodying a confession, him speaking his sins aloud to a dead man with a grudge.

Rascal’s growling slow and steady, pinning Smitty with his glare, trembling with pent-up fear and rage. “Easy,” Dwight soothes, reaching back to calm Rascal with a hand on his head. “I got this one, boy.”

“Soft,” Smitty snickers, “Like you always were. Children and dogs and lost causes. Still?”

Dwight bites out a sharp “What would you know?” and inhales deeply, meeting Smitty’s eyes. _“Listen_ to me. I couldn’t help you. I couldn’t save you. But I could save Boone. Terry, Henry, Ellsworth - I could save them. You were-”

He hates the words but he says them anyway. “You were too far gone, Jake. I’m sorry. You’d have slowed us down. I couldn’t help you. I couldn’t kill you, either,” Dwight murmurs, knowing that it amounts to the same thing, the same damn feeling of failure. “I’m sorry I left you there.”

Dwight remembers walking away as if it was yesterday. The details are lost to time and the effects of trauma on the brain, but Dwight remembers the heat beating down on his back, how he’d lost his footing when he'd been told exactly how far up shit creek the platoon was. Their friends - their brothers - had gone radio silent, which meant that they were in god’s hands, now, according to sarge.

Dwight remembers how the others had rallied against that stoic insistence on moving on. They barely managed to beg and plead their case enough to change the tide. Sometimes Dwight wonders if all of them would've been better off, not making that decision, but that's the guilt talking again. Sometimes, when he can't sleep, Dwight remembers what they found at the camp: Boone in that cage, his leg in shreds. Terry strung up by the wrists, sobbing Dwight’s name, two dead insurgents dropped at Dwight's feet. Whatever happened to Henry, he was as pale as a ghost when they found him.

In his dreams, or his nightmares, Dwight remembers all of it, how Ellsworth never spoke a word of what he went through, only rocking back and forth silently, not letting anyone touch him. It had been in the deepest pit of the base that he’d found Smitty. It was in that pit Dwight had left him on the floor to scream himself hoarse, _don’t leave me, don’t, don’t go, I don’t wanna die here, I don’t wanna die..._

Dwight had squared his shoulders and reported one casualty to the sergeant, the image of Smitty’s mangled body burned into his memory. Bravery had been very far away, that day.

Coming back to himself, Dwight murmurs "Too far gone," and swallows through a dry throat. He never would’ve left a man behind if he had half a shot at survival, but Smitty-? Dwight couldn’t have done anything for him. Couldn’t offer him a dignified death. Didn’t have the time, anyway, with Joey alerting them of approaching figures over the hill, all of them making quick time of leaving the base and leaving Smitty to his fate.

Dwight had heard the gunshot in the dead silence that enveloped him and the others. He’d been barely eighty yards from where Smitty was sentenced to death. “I’m sorry,” Dwight says again, feeling a lump in his throat. “For leaving you.”

Smitty’s face changes almost imperceptibly. The way he smiles is almost genuine. For a moment, Dwight is overwhelmed with longing.

“Kid,” Smitty chuckles, leaning in too close for comfort, his blistered lips grazing Dwight’s cheek, “I’m your lesson. Can’t save everyone. Least of all idiots who get themselves captured and tortured, right? I didn’t blame you for that. I could kill you," Smitty goes on, eyes going flat and cold, "But, man, Goldilocks - almost be a mercy, now, wouldn't it? Like you sufferin' a little. Now you understand, don't you?"

Of all the things that have been said, Dwight gets stuck on the smallest detail. “What did you blame me for?”

Smitty’s voice rings out hollow when he sighs “I blamed you for letting me die alone,” and before Dwight can offer a response to that, Smitty disappears as if he was never there at all, the passenger’s seat empty, Dwight’s heart pounding harshly in his chest, like it might leave bruises on his ribs.

“I really am sorry,” Dwight tells the empty air, knowing that he’ll be sorry for the rest of his life, too. He can't shake the disgust from his expression. It stays with him long into the night, until Dwight starts to feel physically ill, but it's nothing less than what he deserves, in the end, for leaving a man behind.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Let me get this straight,” Duke chuckles, “You want me to pretend to be your future, darling husband and you want me to go to a house showing with you, where we’ll bicker about the drapes and the carpeting to somehow sweettalk information out of this lady?"
> 
> “Minus the bickering, sure,” Dwight sighs, shaking his head in what's mostly real exasperation, paired with good humor and no small amount of trepidation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline, what timeline? For anyone curious I've decided this is set vaguely in season 4, with Dwight as chief of police but we're ignoring the major plot points and beats to let me indulge in this fantasy. Literally, don't @ me about things not matching up with canon, it isn't supposed to. Anyway - this chapter took a lot of effort to actually get done and it got continously longer and longer until I got sick of looking at it and decided to post as is.
> 
> Amendement: Chapter 2 has been updated as of 02.05.2020/May 2nd 2020. Syntax, grammar and spelling errors have been fixed. Some scenes have been expanded and certain gaps in the plot have been filled in.
> 
> Shoutout to [Anna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stukhtra/pseuds/stukhtra) and [Ashe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gendernoncompliant/pseuds/gendernoncompliant) for their support on this chapter.
> 
> Again: PLEASE leave me a comment. Please. This fandom is incredibly small and working on a multi-chapter fic is exhausting and thankless work when you have little indication of anyone liking it beyond getting comments. It means the world to me, so please leave one. ❤
> 
> Check out my [other Haven fics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownedcarl/pseuds/crownedcarl/works?fandom_id=9218791)!
> 
> I'm on [tumblr](https://dickardgansey.tumblr.com)!

It's a bright, beautiful morning and Dwight has two missing people's files laid out on his desk practically the moment he sits down.

Sometimes, he commends Nathan's tenacity. Sometimes, it just gets on his nerves. "You're in early," Dwight comments mildly, eyeing his mug of coffee where Nathan steals it out from under him. "This can't wait?"

"No can do," Nathan hums, sipping on Dwight's cold brew, "We might have a trouble. What's worse, we might _not."_

Alright, then. If Nathan puts on the serious face, Dwight is willing to play along. "What do we have?"

Their suspect’s name is Donna Carver. “She's thirty-six years old and married. Works as a realtor,” Nathan relays, “She was spotted at the coffee shop Matt Bennings was last seen before his disappearance and she showed Bianca Ford a house the same day she went missing. Roughly a week between disappearances. Only thing those two had in common is Donna."

“That’s flimsy,” Dwight comments, yawning discreetly behind his closed fist, thinking back on their timeline and their other suspects, which are precisely zero. Nathan's eyebrows knit together; he doesn't like that Dwight isn't seeing what he's seeing. “It's circumstantial. Definitely not enough for a warrant. Can’t take her in for questioning either, so...how do we get close to her?”

He’s learned not to dismiss Nathan’s theories, no matter how outlandish they seem in the moment. It’s a far cry from working with Garland but like most things, you get used to anything once you do it long enough and Dwight’s gotten used to Nathan Wuornos’s uncanny ability to find answers where none are apparent.

As for Dwight’s question, Nathan brightens a little before he shrugs in response, slowly leaning back in his chair. “No idea,” he confesses, “It’s the only lead we have and it’s a weak one. But I think we need to press her for information. She moved back to Haven after ten years in Seattle and-”

He reaches for Vince’s folder of relevant research, gravely announcing “Her great uncle could make people disappear. We still don’t know how, but he could. Looks like the trouble’s been dormant until now, though. Until Donna came home.”

Dwight looks at the picture Nathan included in the file. Donna has a long mane of red hair trailing across her shoulders and in the first picture, she’s laughing candidly with her arm around another woman, this one blonde and tall and kissing Donna’s cheek. It sparks some glimmer of an idea, but Dwight dismisses it, figuring he’ll save it for their last resort. He's living in Haven, Maine - not some cheesy TV show.

“Well, she looks happy,” he remarks, glancing at Nathan, “Happy people don’t usually have their troubles triggered. We got anything to explain why? Death in the family, something?”

“Asked around, but no. Donna’s happily married and she started her own firm six months ago, which seems to be going great, judging by her new Bentley. From what Gloria tells me, Donna’s anniversary is coming up and she’s thinking of taking the missus to Bali.”

At the look Dwight gives him, Nathan mumbles “Knitting group, I don’t know. Don’t ask questions you don't want answers to.”

“Right,” Dwight laughs, shaking his head, “So we’ve got a realtor with a seemingly perfect life who’s up and vanishing people and we don’t have any idea how or why. We can’t come at her like cops,” he muses, “She gets upset, we might disappear, too and I kind of have plans this weekend I’d rather not miss out on.”

Nathan’s nodding in agreement, frowning with a thoughtful look on his face. Dwight’s mostly joking when he suggests “Maybe we should go undercover, pretend we’re clients. Bet she’d be more receptive to that.”

He really is mostly joking. It’s just his luck that Nathan can’t seem to pick up on his tone of voice and Dwight regrets saying it as soon as Nathan gets that triumphant gleam in his eye. “That’s it,” he exclaims, throwing his hands up, “You can take Duke and get right on that.”

“Wait, what?” Dwight stammers, floundering a little, “Why me and why am I bringing Duke? I was joking, Nathan. She’ll see right through me.”

Nathan’s smirk is a little too smug for Dwight’s liking. “You got any better ideas?”

“You want to maybe at least _pretend_ like you’re not the person in charge around here, wise guy? I’m your boss. Don’t tell me what to do.”

It’s a little petulant - a lot petulant, actually, but Dwight figures he’s entitled to the overreaction, just this once.

Dwight doesn’t, in fact, have any better or brighter ideas, but he still huffs and grumbles and protests, albeit without losing his composure or his dignity quite as badly as he did a minute ago. He does understand Nathan’s point. Donna’s new in town and what with the isolated community they find themselves in, Dwight can’t exactly call Haven progressive or open-minded, for the most part. She’s bound to be lonely, looking for a kindred spirit or two, which is apparently where he and Duke are supposed to come in - or come out, now that he thinks about it.

“Alright,” Dwight finally agrees, “I’ll take Duke, make something up. Engaged,” Dwight decides, nodding briskly at the idea, not letting himself get caught on the roadblock of how they’re supposed to sell it without touching, without Dwight risking giving himself away, “We’re engaged and looking for our first home together. You think that’ll fly?”

He's less looking for approval and reassurance and more hoping Nathan will pick the story apart and decide this is a terrible idea, after all.

Nathan nods his approval, adding “She’ll let her guard down if she thinks you two are together. Make small talk, try to find out if she’s hiding something. If she’s not our perp, great. If she is, the sooner we know, the better.”

Dwight hums, giving Nathan a sidelong look. “I know what you’re doing,” he tells Nathan, “Bringing up Duke. Are you thinking about dropping it anytime soon? It’s not cute, you know, even with a face like yours.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nathan shoots back, smiling widely on his way out the door, “Now go grab your fiancé and get us a real lead.”

“And?” Dwight shouts back, smiling a little when Nathan offers a distant _thanks, chief._ “Damn right you should be thanking me.”

It feels faintly ridiculous, trying to explain the situation and the ensuing hare-brained plan to a wide-eyed and amused Duke who can’t quite stop smiling as Dwight gets to the explanation at the heart of it all. He’s working the lunch shift at the Gull, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Dwight is glad that the overhead light is glaring down at him too brightly to let him look at Duke for too long. He's going soft, lately.

Weakness, Dwight reminds himself, has no place in a professional environment. Not this kind, anyway.

“Let me get this straight,” Duke chuckles, “You want me to pretend to be your future, darling husband and you want me to go to a house showing with you, where we’ll bicker about the drapes and the carpeting to somehow sweettalk information out of this lady?"

“Minus the bickering, sure,” Dwight sighs, shaking his head in what's mostly real exasperation, paired with good humor and no small amount of trepidation, “Hey, don’t look at me like that. I told Nathan I could go alone but he thought you’d be a perfect fit for the job.”

Dwight really didn’t need to come all this way. He didn’t need to get Duke. For all intents and purposes, all Dwight’s doing is rising to the bait Nathan laid out for him but despite knowing better, Dwight wants to bring Duke, if only for backup in case things go sideways. Duke’s dependable. He’s always been more stable than people tend to give him credit for. There's his trouble, too, if things get out of hand - which is a worst-case scenario Dwight won't let himself linger on.

Duke hums “I do have a way with the ladies,” before slyly adding “Maybe not the gay ones, though, but it’s worth a try. So, honey - when do we leave?”

They leave just as soon as the lunch rush is over - about twenty minutes later - which means Dwight gets to drink his fill of ice tea while Duke tends to the last few tables before tossing his apron in the back and ducking into the restroom to freshen up. Dwight isn’t entirely sure what that entails, but Duke comes back out in a maroon button-down shirt, his hair loose and falling softly around his ears, curling at the ends and Dwight’s voice almost, almost cracks when he tells Duke “Alright, princess, you don’t clean up half bad.”

Duke smiles. Dwight’s fingers fumble around the glass. “Ready?”

“After you,” Duke says and off they go.

It takes ten minutes to get to Donna’s latest listing - a modest two-story home with a fenced in backyard, but Dwight parks around the corner from where he can see Donna’s sleek black Bentley and turns to Duke before plainly asking “Are you comfortable with doing this? Be honest.”

Duke’s not a cop. He’s got no obligation to follow through on this. He doesn’t need to sit here and let Dwight feed him a backstory to make their supposed relationship seem authentic, but Duke smiles at him with shiny white teeth and asks “Are you?”

Duke makes it sound a lot like a challenge, for some reason while also managing to avoid answering the question, himself. Dwight doesn’t call him on it. “Alright,” he sighs, leaning back in his seat, “We need to be...convincing. Not over the top,” he tells Duke, watching Duke who's watching him, “Being able to be in each other’s space-”

“And kissing?” Duke asks, his voice comfortably casual, which means that he's anything _but_ , “You gonna lay one on me, sasquatch?”

Dwight’s glad he made the executive decision to park for this conversation, because otherwise he’d have backed them right back out onto the street in shock when Duke asked him that. He meets Dwight's wide-eyed bewilderment with a snorting laugh, holding his hands up in a gesture of innocence, chuckling “Hey, I’m just asking, right? You said we should be convincing. Pretty standard practice for couples to kiss, isn’t it?”

“Not this couple,” Dwight huffs, shoving his hands in his pockets, “Look, Duke, it’s half an hour of pretending to care about the bathroom tile and the open floor plan, right? We just have to get close enough to this woman to figure out if she’s the one behind this trouble. We do that, we won’t have to-”

His breath comes out shallow when he finishes, “Kiss.”

Dwight doesn't want to overthink this, but Duke has a designated spot on the couch when he comes over. Dwight’s gotten too close - he’s gotten too used to having _Duke_ close and it makes the car feel too small to hold them both, suddenly, an anxious energy sparking between them that Dwight is mostly sure Duke is blissfully unaware of. He's offered a moment of reprieve when Duke takes the reigns and rattles off a plausible meet-cute and a backstory that Dwight can get behind, the two of them finally getting out of the car and heading towards the house, walking in tandem.

After a beat, both of them glance at each other before gravitating a little closer. Couples walking three feet apart would be suspect, Dwight figures. He opens the gate to the quaint house just as voices spill out of the half-open front door, an elderly couple thanking Donna Carver profusely for her time as they start heading down the narrow path to their car.

Before Dwight can make introductions, Duke beats him to it. “Miss Carver?” he asks, his shoulder leaning against Dwight’s, “We’re your one o’clock appointment, I think.”

“Oh, was it - shit, let me check my papers-”

Duke barely bites back a snort at Donna’s flustered search for her planner, but Dwight helpfully provides “It was short notice, but I’m-”

“Right,” Donna lights up, “Dwight, wasn’t it? It’s a pleasure,” she goes on, descending the steps to shake his hand, “And you would be?”

“Duke, ma’am. His better half.”

“That’s what you like to think,” Dwight huffs, the reply coming automatically. He’s a little less confident when he looks at Donna and says “I hope we’re not inconveniencing you.”

Donna waves him off, one arm clutching a bunch of binders and folders to her chest as she huffs “No trouble at all,” and then she throws her head back to shake her fringe out of her eyes, adding “This is a great starter home, I’m actually - well, I’m really excited to show it to a younger couple. It’s been grumpy pensionists all morning.”

Her smile is rueful when she clarifies “I think I was more excited to show them the hot tub than they were to see it.”

Duke makes an intrigued noise, looking over Donna’s shoulder as if he’s trying to spot the aforementioned tub. Dwight rolls his eyes and sighs “Really? That’s where your mind goes?”

Duke, to his credit, takes it with grace and follows the smiling Donna inside the house, murmuring “Lot of fun can happen in a hot tub,” to Dwight in passing. He blames the redness in his cheeks on the brisk breeze that rounds the corner.

With the house tour finally starting in earnest, Dwight notices that Duke sticks pretty close to him, despite sometimes sidling up to Donna to talk face to face and letting Dwight hang back and observe without getting too involved. It feels like bad police work to allow Duke to take point on this one, but Dwight’s still tongue-tied and busy trying to decipher if the smiling, cheerful realtor two steps ahead of him could really be their perp. “And,” Duke’s voice reaches him, “You know how it is, we move in packs…”

“Trust me, I get it,” Donna laughs, “That’s really sweet, though. You said it’s coming up on two years, now?”

Context clues let Dwight know it’s safe to interject with “Two years and eight months next Friday.” He shrugs when Donna and Duke turn to him with matching baffled smiles. “What? I can’t keep track of the day I met the bane of my existence?”

There’s a smile in the corner of his mouth that tugs wider when Duke gestures at him and asks Donna “Do you see what I mean? Do you see what I put up with?” to Donna’s bright laughter. Dwight falls behind them once again, wondering if Donna suspects the charade when she starts glancing at Duke and Dwight - at the space between their bodies Dwight can't quite cross - by the time the two of them follow her upstairs.

Donna is the perfect image of the consummate professional as the tour goes on but there’s a hopeful lilt to her voice when she talks about the three bedrooms, how this is a wonderful house for anyone looking to expand the family. She glances pointedly back at them, clearing her throat and moving on to the next room. Dwight pretends it doesn't hurt, the reminder of what he can't have anymore.

Dwight doesn’t know what to do, exactly. There’s something deeply off-putting about how easy it’s been to pretend with Duke, how easy it’s been to do _nothing_ different, other than introducing the word _fiancé_ in the place of _friend._ Still, Donna doesn’t seem entirely convinced of the authenticity of the act, offering them a smile with less warmth when she ducks into another room to take a phone call.

“You’re awful tense,” Duke murmurs, having walked up behind Dwight damn near unnoticed, “She’s suspecting something. Cover won’t hold at this rate, squatch," and without hurry, without warning, Duke plants a hand on Dwight's hip.

“It wouldn’t kill you to use my name,” Dwight sighs, “At least in front of her.”

“You’re focusing on the wrong thing,” Duke challenges, rounding Dwight’s body and putting a hand on his shoulder. His smile gleams under the overhead light. “Relax, will you? We’re doing this for a reason. I can’t carry this entire sting operation by myself. Going to need a little cooperation from you, buddy.”

“What cooperation?” Dwight asks, leaning back against the wall with his arms crossed tightly, short nails digging into his forearms. “I’m not cut out for this. I can leave, Duke. You just tell her I ate something that didn’t agree with me, alright?”

“Not a chance,” Duke tells him, shaking his head and glancing down the hallway where Donna disappeared, slowly cocking his head and listening to the pitch of her voice, how it rises and falls calmly behind closed doors, muffled and melodic. “I’m not doing this alone. You asked me to be here, didn't you? Now you have to suck it up and close your eyes.”

Close your eyes? Dwight frowns, but the look on Duke’s face is unfamiliar and strange - ephemeral, if Dwight had to narrow it down, Duke’s broad palms and slender fingers landing on Dwight’s jaw like birds finally finding a safe place to land. “Thought I was supposed to lay one on you,” Dwight manages, his voice breathless and stuttering. It's a damning thing, how his breath hitches.

Duke’s smile flickers. “Change of plans,” he announces, stepping in between Dwight’s open legs, dry lips finding the corner of Dwight’s mouth, “Just you close your eyes and think of England.”

Dwight would laugh if his mouth wasn’t busy. Duke kisses him lightly, hand moving from Dwight’s jaw to the back of his head, sliding up into his hair, Duke’s mouth opening gently against Dwight’s without any real sense of urgency, but Dwight can feel it when Duke smiles as he hears a door creak open before quickly being shut again.

Donna’s seen them. It should be enough to carry them through the final few minutes of this tour. Dwight doesn’t pull away from the kiss yet, anyway.

He finally remembers to move his hands and Dwight moves them almost absently to Duke’s hips, one arm winding around Duke’s slender waist, fingers delicately settling in the dip of Duke’s back, feeling the warmth of his skin through his thin shirt. “You’re shivering,” Dwight sighs, breaking the kiss momentarily, his forehead pushing up against Duke’s.

“Yeah,” Duke agrees quietly, “Cold out, today.”

He leans in, brushing his mouth across Dwight’s once more. It might be Dwight’s imagination, but it feels like it lingers, this time - but it could be a trick of the mind, he figures, because Duke looks entirely unaffected by the kiss once Dwight opens his eyes, being met by Duke’s affable smile, looking like he doesn’t have a single care in the world.

“I tried not to interrupt,” Donna tells them a minute later when she finally emerges from the home office, eyes bright with laughter, “So, gentlemen, are we ready to finish up this tour, or do you need another couple of minutes?”

“We’re good,” Dwight hastens to say, clearing his throat with a chagrined smile, taking up Duke’s previous spot to Donna’s left, desperate to make conversation with anyone other than the man he just kissed, who seems like he couldn’t care less about it, “Sorry, it’s - our schedules don’t really match up. Didn’t mean to get all handsy teenager on you.”

“It’s really no issue,” Donna promises, “God, me and my Heidi, we were the same way…”

It takes another ten minutes before Dwight is absolutely sure Donna isn’t responsible for the disappearances around town. He chalks her apparent involvement up to coincidence and bad luck, eventually leaving the house with Duke in tow while Donna prepares for her next appointment. Her card is burning a hole in Dwight’s pocket, her personal phone number scrawled beside her professional one stamped on the card. It's a kind gesture.

Despite everything, he feels bad about using her. He feels bad about lying to her, sighing deeply when she takes her next clients inside, a knot loosening in Dwight’s chest once she's gone.

Duke’s shadow falls across him. “Hey,” he laughs, “You in there, sasquatch? Was that a job well done or what?”

Dwight shakes his head - not at Duke, but to rid himself of the nagging thought that he’s somehow done something the two of them can’t take back, because Duke is rocking back on his heels, still smiling, as if nothing has happened at all. It makes Dwight itch, wondering where Duke gets that composure. Maybe it has nothing to do with Duke at all, Dwight reasons. Maybe he’s just the one who's lonely, projecting his thoughts.

Duke looks him right in the eyes and grins, raising an eyebrow. Fuck. It’s not just that Dwight’s lonely. It hasn't been about that for a while.

“Job well done,” he agrees, squinting at Duke, “Could’ve warned me you were going to slip me tongue.”

Duke actually goes a little pink at the admonishment. Go figure. “Hey, read the room,” he grins, “We’re not eighty. I wasn’t going to leave it at a _peck,_ honey.”

There it is again. Honey. Dwight wonders if that’s something Duke picked out of his arsenal, if it’s something he likes to call his girlfriends and boyfriends, but he figures it’s just to get under Dwight’s skin, considering the triumphant gleam in Duke’s eyes when Dwight groans in response. “Sweetheart?” Duke tries, batting his lashes at Dwight.

“You could use my name,” Dwight scoffs, “It wouldn’t kill you.”

“No,” Duke agrees, smiling warmly, “But I’d rather not take the chance, if you don’t mind.”

This is a battle Dwight isn’t winning any time soon. He gets in the car, adjusting his mirrors, waiting for Duke to put his seatbelt on and taking the moment to check his phone, smiling at the update from Audrey about Rascal behaving - for the most part. The attached photo of her destroyed slipper has Dwight snorting a loud laugh before tapping out _I did warn you._

Duke’s glancing at his phone like he’s trying to be subtle about demanding to be let in on the joke, nodding in satisfaction when Dwight shows him the screen. “I was wondering where the dog was,” Duke comments, glancing at Dwight, “But I thought you weren’t keeping him.”

Dwight’s breath stutters when he rushes to say “I’m not,” and beyond that exclamation, he’s left floundering, not knowing how to justify all the time and effort he’s spent on a dog he swears up and down he has no intention of keeping. “He’s not ready for adoption yet. He needs more time to heal and that’s it. That'll be it, alright? There's just nobody else to take him, right now."

Duke hums and nods and deep down, Dwight knows that he doesn’t believe a single word that Dwight’s saying. He doesn’t entirely believe it himself, either, but Dwight’s got a bad track record of keeping the things he loves, so Rascal’s going to some nice suburban family with a white picket fence just as soon as he’s able. Nevermind how little Dwight wants it to happen.

He drops Duke back off at the Gull, perplexed at the earful Duke seems to get from Trish, who stomps over as soon as Duke’s gotten one foot in the door. She’s gesturing wildly at the crowd that’s invaded the restaurant, Duke holding his hands up feebly in response, glancing back across his shoulder at Dwight with a smile that’s half a grimace and still distinctly apologetic, as if Dwight’s the one being yelled at by his head server.

Duke said he had the time, Dwight reminds himself as he tries not to make too much of it but he has to wonder, now that he's watching Duke quickly make his way behind the bar to take orders, watching as he goes rolling his sleeves up and pasting on a bright smile for his next customer.

Dwight resolves to file it away for later and tries his damnedest not to crack open on a smile when Audrey brings Rascal over, his tail wagging all the while as Dwight tries to remind himself that it’s not meant to last.

Duke’s been to his house a half-dozen times, at least, but he still takes in his surroundings like it’s the first and last time he’ll ever get to see it. It's nothing special, if you ask Dwight. He's never had a real eye for what goes together, but he knows what colors he likes and what textures are comfortable and what looks hideous, but Duke looks at his curtains and his pillows with a look that's half intrigue and half amusement.

“What’s so fascinating?” Dwight asks, watching as Duke glances up and down the length of the living room curtains, a smile curving his mouth. He takes the beer that Dwight offers him, humming thoughtfully, not speaking until Dwight’s gotten himself settled on the couch. It's a cozy couch. On bad days, you could sink right into it.

“It’s this house,” Duke says, shrugging slightly, “It’s real cozy. I didn’t notice before.”

“Why’s that a surprise?”

Duke raises an eyebrow, turning to look at Dwight. “C’mon, squatch,” he laughs, “Way you gripe about never being home, never having any time? I figured it’d be...I don’t know, bare bones. Not _cozy.”_

Dwight snorts, but he understands the sentiment. He tried the bare bones thing for a while, actually, right after Lizzie because it had been too painful to see her pictures up on the walls, to remember her dozing on the same pillows Duke’s leaning against now, but the house had felt empty and even more haunted once he packed it all up. It only took an hour until Dwight had to return it to the way it was; pillows back on the couch, pictures up on the wall, curtains placed back on the rods.

“It feels like a home,” Duke adds belatedly and then glances away, turning his efforts towards petting an attention-seeking Rascal. Dwight wonders if Duke feels at home on that boat of his, the way he’s going on about the house. Maybe Duke's never had one, if Dwight lets his mind go there. Maybe that's where the fascination lies.

“It is,” Dwight tells him, “I mean, it’s supposed to, at any rate. Nothing wrong with comfortable, Duke. Nothing wrong with cozy.”

Duke hums. “It’s comfortable, I’ll give you that. You know what you’re about.”

Dwight looks at him, slow and careful; he looks at Duke’s lips, his exposed collarbone, his long-fingered hands. Dwight’s voice is measured when he says “I guess I have a healthy appreciation for the finer things in life," and -

Duke tips his head back and laughs.

His truck goes off the road on Wednesday evening, all because Dwight swerved to avoid a raccoon.

Rascal is barking up a storm in the backseat and pawing at the window, anxiety making his fur stand on end. “Easy,” Dwight tells him, slowly straightening up from where his head hit the airbag when the truck collided with the tree down the hill. All things considered, he thinks he’s fine, but Dwight’s left rubbing at his bloody and what he sincerely hopes isn’t broken nose, exhaling deeply when he turns the engine off, voice coming out a little wet and nasally when he says “Easy, boy. We’re alright.”

It doesn’t help at all. Rascal seems rattled but doesn’t have a scratch on him, the duffel bag he was huddled against having hit the front seat before Rascal did, the impact softened by the hefty bag. It makes Dwight inhale sharply, realizing how wrong this could’ve gone - how close he came to _not being fine_ \- while Rascal whines and starts clawing at the upholstery, only settling down when Dwight turns in his seat to offer a hand to him.

Rascal hesitantly sniffs at his fingers, whining and pawing at the door one more time. Dwight isn’t sure they’re any better off by getting out, but he needs to survey the damage, anyway. Might as well rip the bandaid off.

Rascal hops out as soon as the door is opened enough to let his body fit through the gap, leaving Dwight to slowly dig through his bag for the radio, staring at the front of the truck caved in cleanly from the collision. He’s lucky he got off with nothing more than a busted face and wounded pride, but Dwight is slow to climb out of the car and is taken by surprise at how close to him Rascal is sticking, forcing his body between Dwight’s knees, stubbornly planting himself there and not moving an inch. It helps when Dwight stumbles a little, his footing shaky.

Rascal even lets Dwight pet his head without complaint, which ends up prompting a smile. There must be some truth about there being a silver lining to even the darkest cloud, Dwight thinks.

“Thanks,” he tells his silent shadow, “For not running off. Would be kind of lonely out here without you.”

He doesn’t radio for help immediately. Some part of Dwight is stubborn in not wanting to admit he needs assistance, but Rascal can’t stay out here all night while he tries to solve a problem he caused all by himself, so Dwight reluctantly raises the radio to his mouth and asks for Nathan or Audrey, quietly waiting for a response under the darkening sky.

His phone, as luck would have it, was on the dashboard where a wide crack is running across the flickering screen, leaving the phone almost broken in half and additionally leaving Dwight with just the radio and the expectation that someone will pick up eventually. It’s Nathan’s voice that responds, his words clipped. “Yeah, I hear you,” he tells Dwight, “Go ahead.”

There’s no point in dancing around it. All the confession will do is wound his damn pride. 

“Totaled my car,” Dwight confesses, glad that nobody is around to see him grimace, “Few miles before the bridge. Need a tow and a ride home. Damn raccoon ran me off the road.”

There’s a pause. It lasts for a while. Dwight figures Nathan is having as hard of a time processing this as Dwight is. Dwight can’t be sure, but he thinks there’s an edge of incredulous laughter to Nathan’s voice when he coughs and says “But you’re alright? Raccoon didn’t get the better of you?”

Nathan Wuornos has an odd sense of humor, Dwight thinks, rolling his eyes. “Had the dog with me,” he responds, apropos of nothing, shooting a glance down at Rascal, “We’re alright. Broken nose and shock at most, I think. You wanna send someone out here, Nathan?”

There’s a brief pause before Nathan comes back to say “I can get Tony to tow it, no problem, but he’s allergic to dogs. I’ll get someone to pick you up,” he promises, “I’ll keep you updated.”

“Thanks,” Dwight mutters as he huddles down around Rascal’s warm body, grateful that Rascal allows it - he encourages it, even, burying his muzzle against Dwight’s folded arms. The windchill is supposed to get severe, he remembers, linking his fingers together around Rascal’s chest, keeping them both warm while they wait for someone to bring them home. Every minute feels longer than it should, stuck out here.

It’s a while later - ten, fifteen minutes later - that Dwight spots headlights on the road, hearing a car rumble to a stop. It’s a familiar engine, he thinks, laughing below his breath when he hears Duke calling “Sasquatch? Rascal? You out here?” as a flashlight illuminates the darkness.

“I have a name,” Dwight calls back, watching Duke carefully make his way over, whistling at the wreckage of the car once he comes to a stop. “Nathan ask you to come?”

“He did. Not very nicely, mind you,” Duke grins, crouching down to pet Rascal when he slowly walks over, letting Duke scratch his big head. “But I’m a good samaritan. You know you’ve got something…?”

Gesturing at his face, Duke’s smile drops into a grimace. “Blood?” Dwight guesses, tilting his head down and pressing the edge of his sleeve to his nose. “Yeah. It’s fine. Had worse.”

Duke gives Rascal a parting pat on the head before he rises back to his feet, circling the truck slowly and giving the hood a lingering look. “Tow was right behind me,” he assures Dwight, “Just grab whatever you need and we’ll go.”

He gets the duffel out of the trunk but before he can even hoist it across his shoulder, Duke is snagging it out of Dwight’s hand with a grin. “You’re injured,” he shrugs, “It’s the right thing to do.”

It’s kind of a ridiculous sentiment but Dwight appreciates it anyway. He gladly lets Duke lead the way up to the car with Rascal glancing between the two of them as if he’s checking that nobody is getting left behind, which soothes a distress Dwight didn't even know he was carrying. It doesn’t take long until they reach Duke’s car, but when Dwight tries to get in the passenger seat, Rascal whines from the back. 

Pausing, Dwight considers the implication before he climbs into the back, too, to a pleased huff from Rascal, the two of them sharing the seat.

Duke remains mostly quiet during the drive, seeming almost muted compared to his usual cheer, but he does glance back at Dwight every now and then to ask how he’s holding up, seemingly uncomfortable with sitting in pure silence. Dwight humors him while he tries to get a handle on the blood dripping from his nose and he's more than a little relieved to see the silhouette of his house appearing just up ahead.

He’s stiff when he gets out and stretches his legs, practically wobbling up the path and barely managing to get across the threshold without feeling a little dizzy, eventually waving a hand at Duke in both thanks and dismissal, knowing Duke’s got better things to do than look after him.

Dwight isn’t expecting the way that Duke follows him inside, though, as if he always intended to see this through properly. “You look pretty rough,” Duke tells him, “And I know a thing or two about patching up damage like that. Sit down somewhere and tell me where the first aid kit is.”

In the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the tub in jeans and his bloodied t-shirt, Dwight feels a thread of anxiety creeping up his spine while he watches Duke rummage in the cabinet for the elusive first aid kit after having tried the hallway closet first. Duke starts running the tap while Rascal whines outside the door. “Don’t give me that,” Duke pleads, glancing at the door and then at Dwight’s downright uneasy expression, “I’m already stressed out. Don’t need the dog tripping me up and making me stab you with the needle.”

Why Duke is stressed, Dwight doesn't understand. It isn't in Duke's nature to cave under pressure and Dwight can't remember Duke ever volunteering information like _that_ so easily, which means that there's some piece of the puzzle that Dwight is missing. He inspected his face in the bathroom mirror before Duke forced him to sit on the edge of the tub and while the cut is ugly, no doubt, Dwight doesn't see any need for stitches. Not that he's an expert. Dwight's been known to rough it through a sprain or two, but he still doesn't understand why Duke's hands are so uncoordinated, why he seems so tense.

It hits Dwight suddenly, the realization sitting heavy in his stomach as it comes a second too late. Duke doesn't want to risk getting Dwight's blood on him. Of course he's not happy at the situation they’ve found themselves in. Why he’s even offering his help in the first place is beyond Dwight, but he appreciates it. He wants Duke to know that, but the words are hard to come by.

“Gloves on the top shelf,” Dwight tells Duke, trying to keep his voice as kind and as level as possible, watching as Duke’s expression brightens with relief. “Don’t need to take any chances, right? I get it.”

Duke tenses all over again and Dwight can’t for the life of him figure out why, resigning himself to watching as Duke approaches with a damp washcloth, instructing Dwight to tilt his head back for inspection. Belatedly, Dwight asks “Have you ever actually done this before?” and Duke glances at him, shrugging.

“Have my fair share of experience. Old man got in fights, sometimes.”

There’s an echo of something deeper there that Dwight is certain Duke won’t want to talk about. Family’s a touchy subject. The two of them have that in common, both of them falling into silence while Rascal huffs in the hallway, his shadow moving to settle down on his haunches on the other side of the door, waiting to be let inside. “What’s the prognosis?” Dwight eventually asks, feeling Duke’s fingers moving across his jaw, wiping away the dried blood carefully. “Am I gonna live?”

Duke’s mouth twitches into a smile. It shouldn’t feel so much like an achievement. “Well, it’s not broken so I think you’ll pull through,” Duke says, “Might have a scar to show for it, though. Sorry.”

“What’s one more,” Dwight murmurs, scratching a hand through his hair, watching as Duke wets the washcloth again, wincing a little when he runs it across the cut on the bridge of Dwight’s nose. “Ouch.”

It doesn’t hurt that much, in all honesty, but Dwight’s got to fill the silence with something when Duke isn’t making much of an effort to keep up his usual running commentary. It takes another minute before Duke conversationally says “When Nathan told me you managed to get your car wrapped around a tree, I seriously thought he was messing with me. You wouldn’t, I thought. You’re too responsible and on top of things to go swerving off the road, right?”

“...thanks?” Dwight says, squinting at Duke. “I think?”

“No, listen,” Duke sighs, soaking a cotton pad in rubbing alcohol, “It’s one of those things that isn’t supposed to happen. Like Nathan finding a sense of humor, you know? Not possible. So,” Duke goes on, holding Dwight’s jaw carefully while he cleans the cut, his expression gone tense, “Don’t do it again. You’re lucky you didn’t break something.”

Dwight sighs “It’s not as if I did it on purpose, Duke.”

“I know,” Duke quietly admits, his gloved fingers adjusting the angle of Dwight’s head, Duke’s lashes gone impossibly dark against his cheeks with the overhead light casting a halo around Duke’s head. He’s close. Too close for comfort, if Dwight’s being honest, leaving him holding his breath while Duke gets lost in his own head, finally brightening with a smile that only seems a little forced. His hand falls from Dwight’s face to Duke’s lap, the warmth of his touch lingering. 

“Be careful, will you? We need you around. A lot more than before. More than ever, maybe.”

Need, Duke says. It’s a familiar word. It's a word that Dwight gets assigned a lot and for all that he has a healthy appreciation for it, there's a resentment in that little word, too because people have always needed him and Haven seems to be no different than his hometown. No different than the military, either, but Dwight was hoping there would be someone - anyone - who would forget about all that damn need and _want_ him, for once, but Dwight is too old to wish for the impossible. He’s learned too many hard lessons, over the years. Don't hang your hopes on the impossible.

“I will be,” he promises Duke, his voice ringing out in a hollow echo inside the enclosed space of the bathroom walls. After a beat, once Duke has carefully stripped off his gloves, Dwight adds “Drive safely.”

Duke smiles sharply, hearing the irony in those words and realizing, suddenly, that he’s been dismissed. He salutes Dwight with a quiet “Later, squatch,” before opening the door and managing to give Rascal a kiss on the head before leaving, his footsteps receding down the stairs. A minute later, Rascal pokes his head inside the bathroom, whining as the front door slams.

“I know, buddy,” Dwight sighs. “I wish he would’ve stayed, too.”

Nathan picks him up the next day. He isn’t much of a good conversationalist first thing in the morning, barely mumbling a cursory hello when Dwight and Rascal get in the car, fingers twitching around the steering wheel as Nathan sits in groggy silence while Dwight gets his seatbelt on.

It irks him, honestly, the fact that Nathan doesn’t even bat an eye at Rascal’s inclusion, because it implies that Nathan is starting to think of the dog as _Dwight’s_ , which wasn’t what was meant to happen. It’s a little too late to call it quits now, Dwight knows, what with the _certificate of completion_ for the obedience training hanging up on a frame in the living room. Still - the dog’s not meant to stay with him. Ross will take it off his hands soon enough.

Rascal isn’t his dog. Dwight shakes his head at the thought, trying to bite down on a grimace and failing, judging by Nathan’s bleary-eyed squint of concern. Dwight doesn't offer an explanation, mirroring Nathan's silence.

“Why’d you ask Duke to get me?” he does eventually ask as they’re halfway to the station, turning his head to look out the window and suppressing a yawn. “Nobody else available last night?”

“Huh?” Nathan asks, taking his eyes briefly off the road to glance at Dwight. “No. No, he offered.”

Dwight waits for Nathan to follow that up with a punchline that never comes. An unsettling realization squeezes Dwight's guts.

“He offered,” Dwight repeats, his voice coming out mildly stunned, which is pretty mellow, now that his heart is trying to crawl into his throat. “What was he doing at the station in the first place?”

It was late when he crashed. He doesn’t fully understand Duke, because he still maintains that they’re barely friends, even if Duke always teases him with a good-natured grin, nowadays but Duke was there to hear the call and he apparently offered his services. He thought it was a good call, deciding to drive into the dark night to offer a helping hand. Dwight can’t quite make sense of it and he ends up staring straight ahead, aware of Nathan watching him warily.

“Yeah,” Nathan mumbles, “I don’t know. What does Duke ever do at the station other than bother me?"

Automatically, Dwight offers "He brings croissants," and then shuts himself up, because that is another dangerous line of thought to get stuck on.

Duke offered. Dwight can’t get past the fact that Duke didn’t say so, only nodding along when Dwight asked if it was Nathan that asked him to come, but the lie makes no sense, either. 

What did Duke think he had to lose by admitting it?

What does Dwight stand to lose by calling Duke on it?

“You two,” Nathan says, breaking the solemn silence and tearing Dwight out of his messy thoughts. “You two are friends now, right?”

It isn’t fair to say that Nathan sounds jealous, because he’s being careful to keep his tone casually interested, but Dwight still picks up on the uneasy cadence, shrugging tightly in response. Friends. Jesus, Dwight can't make heads or tails of what Duke wants from him, anymore, why he still comes around if he's keeping secrets from Dwight. “Duke wouldn’t call us that,” he murmurs, glancing back at Rascal, adding “He likes the dog more than he likes me, honestly. We hang out, sometimes.” Sometimes being most weekends, but who’s counting?

“Does he? Like the dog more?”

Nathan’s got a strange, contemplative expression on his face. “Maybe you should talk,” he offers, sounding painfully awkward, clearing his throat and refusing to look at Dwight. “Might do you some good.”

Oh, god. Nathan Wuornos is trying and failing at offering him advice - relationship advice, of all things. Dwight only nods, trying to take it in stride without making things any tenser. It’s not a long drive, thankfully and after Nathan drops him off in town, all Dwight is focused on today is on figuring out whether the damage to his car can be repaired or not - otherwise, he’ll have to get a new one, which doesn’t appeal to him at all. It's an expense he wasn't counting on.

He likes his car, too. He likes that Rascal feels at home in it, relaxed enough to sleep while the two of them drive. It shouldn’t be a selling point, but it is.

“Dwight,” Nathan says once he pulls up in front of the station, “I mean it. Talk to him.”

The way Nathan is pushing makes Dwight feel tense at the idea of practically being ordered around, but Nathan’s stern frown makes him think twice about protesting. He does need to talk to Duke, anyway, if only to say thank you. “Sure thing,” he sighs, closing the door behind Rascal. “Thanks for the ride.”

The car is totaled, according to the mechanic who greets Dwight for his appointment. “That a technical term?” Dwight sighs, scratching the back of his head. The butterfly bandage across his eyebrow itches. He tries to stop picking at it.

“Fucked up beyond all hope of repair,” Mitch, according to his name tag, elaborates after a beat. “There’s nothing we can do here, man. Best deal is you sell it for scrap and we sell you something in working order, but I gotta tell you, we don’t have a ton sitting around.”

Dwight accepts that with all the grace he can muster, which admittedly isn’t a lot, but he does thank the mechanic for the assessment before heading out the door and doing the required mental gymnastics to figure out how the hell he’s going to afford a new car on his crappy insurance. In the end, he figures that he could consult Nathan for answers later, considering how dearly Nathan loves his piece of shit truck. He’s bound to have it insured, Dwight figures and if nothing else, someone in Haven must owe Nathan a useful favor.

After accepting temporary defeat, Dwight braces himself because next on the agenda is a visit to the Gull. There's not a lot of pep in his step on the walk over there, but the fresh air and the salt on the breeze helps calm his nerves.

Duke is a creature of habit. It’s noon and lunch service is in full swing with Duke behind the bar, doing his utmost in trying to look busy while a tipsy regular tries to hound him for more champagne. Duke looks up from taking an order and catches Dwight’s eye through the open door, spotting Rascal practically glued to Dwight’s side as they squeeze between packed tables. Rascal whines impatiently at the sight of Duke and the distraction of all the scents wafting out from the kitchen, clearly wanting to go say hello to Duke by the way he’s tugging at his leash. Dwight, unfortunately, can relate. He reigns in the impulse to let go of the nagging question that has been sitting in the back of his head since Nathan dropped that bomb on him, earlier. He needs to have this conversation while he's still got the conviction to follow through.

“Dogs allowed in here?” Dwight asks, his voice carrying across the space between them in a brief lull in the commotion. “You have a minute, Duke?”

“Sure I do,” Duke says, gesturing towards the back, “Be right there.”

It seems to be an invitation to sit down, so Dwight goes outside and does just that. He takes a seat and lets Rascal wander around to sniff at the myriad of different scents left by the other patrons before he sits down by Dwight’s side, perking up when Duke brings out a cup of coffee for Dwight and a bowl of water for Rascal. It’s chilly outside, but Duke’s gone and installed heat lamps by the tables lining the deck, letting all three of them warm up. Duke makes a performance of sitting down across from Dwight with a cardigan buttoned up over his henley, his knuckles red from the cold. Duke crosses his legs at the ankle. It looks elegant.

“What’s up, sasquatch?”

There he goes again. “I have a name,” Dwight pointedly tells Duke, watching him roll his eyes with an easy grin. That’s not a battle Dwight is likely to ever win, so he switches tracks, saying “I wanted to thank you for coming last night and for what you did for me. Afterwards.” It comes out in a rush, all of it. Dwight stumbles on some of the words.

It shouldn’t be so hard to say the words outright - for helping me - but Dwight can’t seem to make the words come out the way they should. Duke seems to understand him anyway, because he's nodding carefully while he takes in Dwight’s face, examining the bruises lining Dwight's right eye socket and the side of his nose, how the wound held together by butterfly band aids is still raw. “I did a bang-up job, huh?” Duke laughs, bringing his own coffee to his mouth. In Dwight’s experience, the coffee always has a splash or two of bourbon in it. “You’ve looked better, though. No offense.”

“You’re not wrong, but I've looked worse, too,” Dwight huffs, squinting out at the ocean and the violent waves, leaning into Rascal’s warmth against his ankle. “Nathan says you offered to come. Why’d you tell me he asked?”

He’s mostly curious, trying not to sound accusing. Duke’s hand halts with the coffee halfway to his mouth. “Nathan said that?” he mutters, glancing at Dwight. “What’s the big deal? You would’ve preferred Stan? Stan listens to country and sings along to every word, man. You should be glad it was me.”

Duke’s talking fast and that means one of two things; he’s trying to sell Dwight on something, or he’s trying to deflect.

Quietly, Dwight says “I didn’t say I wasn’t happy to see you, now did I?”

Duke blinks at him before huddling down in his seat. “You were happy to see me,” he repeats. “What’s the big deal, then?”

“It’s not a big deal,” Dwight says, trying to keep his voice even despite the frustration bleeding into his vowels. “I just don’t understand why you’d lie. You told me Nathan asked. Why did you lie about it?”

He wonders if there’s any point in dancing around the subject, around the unnamed _thing_ between them that Dwight is starting to doubt was ever there at all.

There have been these moments, is the thing - small and precious moments, big and significant ones. After a while, the moments started to add up. Duke bringing him coffee unprompted, Duke staying the night just to keep him company first thing in the morning, Duke not telling Dwight to calm down when Rascal jumped up and knocked over a picture frame of Lizzie, shattering the glass - Duke kneeling down beside an agitated Dwight, instead and promising that it was fixable. Those moments matter. They should, at any rate. It can’t be Dwight imagining things.

It feels pretty stupid, though, to be arguing about it. That doesn’t make it any more likely that Dwight will be able to let it go, because it feels oddly important, that one little lie that Duke didn’t think he’d be called out on. It holds too much weight. It’s making Duke look too shifty and uncomfortable for it to be _nothing._ “Look,” Dwight goes on when it’s clear Duke can’t think of a justification, “I’m just confused, Duke. That’s all.” That’s an omission on Dwight’s part, but Duke doesn’t call him on it. It’s a goddamn stalemate, both of them talking circles around the point.

Duke nods, though, smiling a little. It’s not really a genuine smile. It’s his _‘the customer is angry and I’m trying to salvage the situation’_ smile and Dwight never expected to be on the receiving end of it.

“Ah, you got me,” Duke eventually says, shrugging a little, “I missed the big guy. Wanted to get some quality time in with the dog. Besides, Nathan was boring me to death. Had to come up with an excuse to leave him and his paperwork alone.”

“The dog,” Dwight echoes, his cup making a loud bang on impact with the table. He’s not angry yet, not boiling over, but the frustration sits at the back of his throat, bitter and acrid. The impact of the cup against the tabletop startles all three of them, sending Rascal jumping up from his sprawl and going on high alert. “You know what, save it. I don’t know why I bother, sometimes.”

Dwight thought he knew Duke better than this. He thought he was more than an afterthought and he knows, deep down, that he means _something_ to Duke, but this denial sparks something ugly and insecure in Dwight’s chest that he can’t reconcile with the Duke that always makes him laugh when Dwight needs it the most. “Why can’t you talk to me?” Dwight demands, “What are you so afraid of?”

Duke’s seen the worst in Dwight more than once. It’s no easy thing, being vulnerable, but Duke can’t so much as look at Dwight, a thread of tension running through his jaw, hands clenched around his coffee cup. It’s telling that Duke’s got nothing to say, either, no well-prepared excuse or explanation sitting on the tip of his tongue. He’s just...quiet, staring out at the ocean, his mouth tight. “So I misspoke,” Duke finally mutters, “You really going to chew me out over that?”

“Except you didn’t,” Dwight insists, sighing and shaking his head, “Maybe I’m just crazy. Maybe I got so goddamn lonely I started imagining things. Or you’re lying to me, but I just don’t get why you would.”

Duke looks right at him and then rolls his eyes. “I’m telling you,” he says, voice clipped, “It’s not a big deal.”

Dwight narrows his eyes and challenges “If it’s not that big of a deal, then why are your hands shaking?”

Duke quickly looks down and mutters _fuck,_ pasting on a bright smile that’s so fake it hurts Dwight to look at it. “Duke,” Dwight finally says, feeling lost and on the verge of defeat, “You think I’m stupid? Is that it? You think I don’t notice things-?”

“Like what?” Duke asks, sharp and suspicious. Dwight laughs thinly, leaning back in his chair.

He looks down at the ground and starts from the beginning, thinking back to the first act of kindness he can remember, the catalyst to them being here, right now, having this conversation. He thinks about Duke driving through a snowstorm for him and then denying the why of it. Another night of watching TV together where Duke had cooked homemade fajitas and pretending it was only leftovers, treating it as something trivial and unimportant. Another time, with Duke picking up the phone on the first ring from a dead sleep but failing to muffle his yawn properly, failing to force the evidence of sleep from his voice - all the little things Duke thinks Dwight doesn't see that he does. He always saw it. Dwight noticed all of it, how often Duke went above and beyond.

He's always noticed Duke making an effort, how he's been offering his help while pretending it's no big deal, that it's a coincidence, really, that he was nearby at all.

Acts of service. Maybe that's Duke's love language.

The fact that it's always meant the world to Dwight, having someone to depend on? That just makes the denial all the more maddening.

Before Dwight can say it, any of it, he swallows down the lump in his throat and mutters in a tone of defeat, “It doesn’t matter, does it? You won’t own up to it, anyway. You’d rather fight with me than have a conversation.”

Duke’s expression falls quickly and it leaves his face looking oddly childlike and vulnerable. It's not an expression Dwight has ever seen him wear, before.

“Hey, come on, squatch,” Duke tries, but Dwight’s already getting to his feet and calling Rascal over even when he seems reluctant to leave Duke’s side. It’s a stupid situation to be stuck in, arguing over what amounts to nothing at all in the grand scheme of things, but Dwight can’t quite keep his cool when he turns to look at Duke, his expression stormy and his jaw gone tense.

“I don’t know what you’re trying so hard to keep to yourself, but I’m opting out of caring, Duke. It’s not too much to ask,” Dwight adds, “For you to be honest. I’ve never lied to you. Not once.”

He wishes, suddenly, that he could turn back time. Dwight wishes that he could be on his couch three Fridays ago, feet tucked beneath a warm blanket with Duke laughing to his right with one hand on Dwight’s ankle, landing there almost instinctively. Dwight wishes he could have that back, that he could take the entire argument back, but it’s not what he wants the most. Beyond that, Dwight wants to resolve this. He wants to know where they stand.

Before he rounds the corner, Dwight sighs and quietly adds “Whatever’s going on with you, don’t take it out on me. I was happy to see you, for the record. It wouldn’t kill you to admit you give a damn too, once in a while.”

Dwight doesn’t know if Duke is choosing not to hit back, or if he doesn’t know what to say, if maybe he’s genuinely speechless or struck dumb with anger but Dwight is tired of trying to decipher what Duke means, what he wants, why he does the things he does. There came a point where he thought he and Duke had an understanding, that the two of them were at a tipping point towards being more to each other than casual acquaintances, but if he was wrong, he was wrong. There’s no point in chasing someone who can barely admit he cares whether Dwight lives or dies.

It’s a harsh thought. Dwight can’t justify it. It still feels too true and too raw to gloss over, right now.

It doesn’t really hurt to be given the runaround by Duke. Dwight is too old to get worked up over things not working out, because they rarely do. He’s got Rascal, for now and he’s got his job and he’s got this entire town to fix, one disaster at a time, which doesn’t leave much leftover time to wallow in self-pity over not being wanted by the one person he thought he was making progress with.

God. The one person in the entire world he thought wanted him let him walk away. How’s that for pathetic, begging to be chased, just the once?

“I know,” Dwight snaps when Rascal whines on their walk back into town. He's well aware that he could have handled things better with Duke. It weighs heavily on him, now, but Dwight’s just tired of people _expecting_ him to be the bigger man, Duke included. “I know, buddy. It’s just going to be you and me again for a while.”

Friday nights at the Gull are busy - but not so busy that Duke can’t slip out from behind the bar to join Nathan and Audrey mid-conversation, fitting in the space between them like he was always meant to be there. It could be the green-eyed monster in Dwight’s chest speaking, but the sight of the three of them moving around each other with ease and familiarity...it makes Dwight wonder if he’s wasted all these months, if it’s all been for nothing. Maybe he's just been seeing things. God knows the stress of the job could be getting to him.

Gloria comes back with a tray of shots just in time. “What?” she demands once she sees Dwight’s raised eyebrow, “I know how to party. I was a cool cat, once.”

“Oh, I believe you,” Dwight snorts, reaching for his shot and blinking at the speed that Gloria downs her own. “Huh.”

She grins, nodding at Dwight to wordlessly urge him to catch up. Fifteen minutes later, he’s good and melancholy and just on the wrong side of tipsy, staring vacantly past Gloria’s shoulder until she starts snapping her fingers right in front of his face, sighing “You in there, kid?” until Dwight shakes the unease off and musters up a smile for her.

“I am,” Dwight groans, “Just - I don’t think drowning my sorrows is really working tonight.”

“What,” Gloria mutters, “Did Duke do now?”

Dwight draws a deep breath. Why does everyone assume it's always about Duke? Not that they're wrong - Dwight just wonders when he became that easy to read.

“It’s not about him,” Dwight denies, pausing to squint at Gloria, “Why would you think that it was?”

Gloria rolls her eyes at him, gesturing vaguely, elaborating “Because any time I’ve seen you with that long face lately, mister, it’s always about Duke. I’m old, not senile. I notice these things.”

Dwight hopes the flush on his face can be excused by the shots, but it’s still humiliating to sit there in the damn booth and be so exposed, watching Gloria sigh and pin him with her shrewd gaze. “You care about him. He’s not all that good at letting you, is he?”

“...no,” Dwight concedes, shrugging. “But I can’t force him. He’s - that’s not what he wants, anyway. He made it pretty clear. You want another shot?”

“Slow down, cowboy,” Gloria chuckles, “Now, I’ve been around for a while and I’ve been around you two long enough to know that if you want to figure it out, you will.”

Dwight doesn’t want to wear Duke down. He wants Duke to want him back. “I keep trying,” he mutters, frustration bleeding into his voice, “Is it really too much to ask for? Him trying just a little bit, too?”

Gloria hums and starts flagging down a server to order four more shots. When she turns back to Dwight, she’s got a stern expression on her face. “No, it’s not,” she agrees, “But it’s like you said. Can’t force people. They have to make good decisions on their own. It's a giant headache, caring about someone.”

There’s loud laughter drifting over from the bar. Audrey’s laughing at something Duke’s saying, one of her hands planted on Nathan’s thigh, the other poking Duke in the chest.

“Those three,” Gloria snorts, nodding at the bar where Duke’s propped on his elbows with Nathan to his right, Audrey still laughing brightly, “Now that, I’ll never understand, but bless their hearts for sticking together. If only it weren’t so annoying.”

“You don’t think-?”

Dwight’s voice comes out a little squeaky. Gloria pins him with an unimpressed stare and pats his hand, sighing “Now, don’t you worry your pretty head over it. I always thought it would be Duke and Nathan, but I guess even an old woman can be wrong, every now and then.”

She senses Dwight’s discomfort, noticing the way his expression drains to reveal something exhausted and hollow lining his face, Gloria sighing deeply in response, rolling her eyes heavenward.

“Dwight,” she says, commanding his attention again, “I’m not _actually_ blind, you know. I know a thing or two about you and I know a little something about Duke, too. Now, whatever stupid thing he’s doing, he’ll get his head out of his ass sooner or later.”

“What if he doesn’t?” Dwight asks, looking at Duke, “What if it’s always just a - maybe? An almost?”

“In that case,” Gloria sighs, “We’re going to need a lot more alcohol.”

The next day, barring the hangover, goes smoothly. Dwight drops Rascal off at Ross’s farm for the day bright and early and then he goes to work, hiding out in his office to avoid Duke when he drops in around noon for reasons unknown - Dwight doesn’t let himself pay much attention to it, or question it. He stays in his office, drinking his cold coffee. He plays at being busy when Duke passes the office window and after two more passes, Dwight shuts the blinds.

It's maybe a little petty, but Dwight is trying to preserve his sanity. He putters around the office, chasing down any and all paperwork errors that he can get his hands on, accidentally putting the fear of god into Stan when Dwight demands his signature with a half-crazed look in his eyes. After that, the day moves on at a snail's pace.

Eventually, there’s nothing left to _do._ Haven’s a small town. Without any troubles running wild, he’s all out of signatures to give and reports to fill out, so he rummages through his bag and reaches for his kit, glancing up as Nathan walks through the door with two cups of coffee, raising an eyebrow in silent question. “Yes, please,” Dwight groans, making a grateful gesture in Nathan's direction as the revered cup slowly approaches his desk.

“Huh,” Nathan comments, staring at the delicate slip of silk in Dwight’s hands, “Chief of police and you’re still doing odd jobs?”

“Pays the rent,” Dwight grins, running his fingers over the tear in Audrey’s dress. “Mostly. This is just a favor to a friend.”

Audrey had tried to mend the tear herself. All it did was make it wider, she had lamented, facing Dwight with the saddest eyes Dwight had ever seen and two seconds later, he’d heard himself offering his services. Now here he is, taking a break from his currently non-existent paperwork, needle in hand. “Where’d you learn all this, anyway?” Nathan asks, taking Dwight’s empty cup and replacing it with a steaming one.

Dwight doesn’t talk about his childhood often. He shrugs, murmuring “Mom was a seamstress,” as he carefully smoothes the length of silk down his thigh, “I had small hands, once upon a time. She needed the help, sometimes, so I learned.”

The two of them would drink lemonade and work on her orders on the porch, Monday through Saturday. Dwight remembers being paid in quarters for his effort, knowing he was useful. “Anyway,” he goes on, clearing his throat, “I’m hardly an expert. I just-”

“Fix things,” Nathan hums, “Right. That’s what you do.”

A few days later, things are still holding to pattern: it’s quiet in Haven and Dwight’s not talking to Duke. He spends most of his time at the station, feeling lonelier than ever, popping his head out briefly to ask Nathan about whatever it was that he needed signed, sighing quietly at the state of Nathan and Audrey’s shared work space. The guilty little glance Audrey shoots him before half-heartedly tidying her files almost makes Dwight laugh.

Nathan’s desk is cluttered. Dwight doesn’t know what he expected, honestly, but he _had_ had hopes that Nathan wouldn’t take after Garland in that respect.

The point is: Nathan’s desk is cluttered. When Dwight comes out of his office looking for the report Nathan wanted his signature on, Nathan’s fumbling his phone in one hand and his coffee in the other, trying to use his elbow to jam his desk drawer open, mumbling something to Audrey who’s contently watching without offering to help. “Some partner you are,” Nathan manages to enunciate, his coffee cup teetering precariously on the edge of his desk.

He finally manages to open the drawer, but the force jams the drawer and sends some of the contents spilling out, Nathan barely being able to keep the coffee from tipping over. “Careful,” Audrey cautions him, “It’s still hot. Don’t burn yourself.”

Dwight waits, mostly patiently, for Nathan to fumble for the right folder. He hears something rolling under Nathan’s chair. “Think you dropped something,” Dwight offers as Nathan tilts his head and goes groping beneath the desk. Dwight is never really going to understand how Nathan can do that without looking, what with not being able to feel, but Nathan grasps something in his hand and pulls himself upright.

He glances at the label on the prescription in his hand and quickly stuffs it back in the drawer, face pale. Dwight sees the purple front of the box, the typeface announcing **Depo-Testosterone** while Nathan looks to be bracing himself for some kind of hit. Dwight sighs.

“The report, Nathan?”

It’s handed to him, Nathan’s hand going a little shaky. Audrey’s watching them both with an impassive expression that Dwight knows is cultivated for Nathan’s comfort. Dwight skims the paper, jots down his signature and says “Take an early lunch, you two,” and waves them off, watching as Nathan’s expression melts into relief.

He murmurs a quiet, grateful “Thanks, chief,” with a tiny curve to his mouth that’s almost a smile and Dwight knows, without any doubt, that nothing has really changed between them - that nothing really _will_.

Roughly a week in total has passed since the crash when Dwight unexpectedly runs into Gloria at the station. She spots him as soon as he walks in with Rascal tense at his heels, his head lowered as he keeps flinching back from the officers trying to coo at and pet him, Rascal quickly darting between Dwight's legs to take solace.

“Hey, champ,” Gloria greets him, mustering a smile while she closes the file she was talking Nathan through, a young girl’s body briefly visible on the page before she closes and puts the folder away. “Now let me see what Duke did to your poor face.”

The other night, Dwight had to carry Gloria to a taxi and send her on her way after one too many shots. He had hoped to get over his injuries in peace, left to lick his wounds, but Gloria is sober and stern and staring him down, not intending to move until Dwight caves.

“He didn’t…” Dwight starts, but he knows she means well, so Dwight ends up relenting and leaning down to her scrutiny, letting her inspect his healing nose and wincing slightly as Gloria tilts his head with careful fingers on his jaw. “It’s just a cut and some bruises. It’ll heal.”

She hums, pressing the pad of her thumb against the bridge of his nose, making Dwight flinch and making Gloria’s frown etch a little deeper. He hates to be another one of her worries. “Well, it’s decent enough,” she declares, patting Dwight’s cheek, “Won’t lose your looks, at least.”

Dwight doesn’t argue the point, only nodding and offering Gloria a small smile. It doesn’t feel entirely genuine and judging by Gloria’s stare, she knows as much, too, but she lets it slide. She’s got bigger things to worry about, judging by the autopsy and the deep burns on pale skin that Dwight was able to spot a minute earlier. “What are we dealing with?” Dwight asks, wondering why he hasn’t been brought in on this, yet, if it’s left both Gloria and Nathan with those solemn looks on their faces. “Trouble?”

“Don’t know, yet,” Nathan admits, shaking his head. “Only one case, so far. She went up in flames. Someone’s saying spontaneous combustion-”  
  
“That’s horseshit,” Gloria mumbles. Nathan gives her a sharp look, but his frown tells Dwight he completely agrees.

“One witness, but he was all over the place. Swore up and down he didn’t see any fire. Just that she was suddenly screaming, that he could smell-” he peers at the file, then sighs “Barbecue. We don’t have a lot to go on, honestly. Trouble, maybe.”

Teenage girl, gone up in flames. Dwight doesn’t know what to make of it, resting his hip on the edge of the desk and murmuring “Can’t blame the troubles for everything, Nathan. Could be this was a premeditated attack. Regular criminals do still exist.”

“I know that,” Nathan promises, but his voice is thin and his expression is pinched. Dwight knows Nathan always takes these cases the hardest. It’s become routine, tracking down troubles and helping people cope with them but when it comes to regular people committing regular crimes, it hits a little harder, knowing it could have been prevented. He can’t wrap his head around premeditated cruelty. He can’t process it at all, despite everything he’s seen. It gets harder to understand over the years, knowing what he knows, having lost as much as he has.

“Nathan,” Dwight says, forcing Nathan to look at him. “Whoever, or whatever this is, we’ll figure it out. We always do.”

Nathan doesn't respond. He shuffles his feet, arms crossed uncomfortably, lips pressed together in a thin line. He's taking it hard.

“Poor thing,” Gloria mumbles, shaking her head. “No way for a kid to go out. It’s senseless. It’s just plain senseless.”

She eventually bids them both goodbye, patting Nathan on the shoulder and departing quietly, leaving the two of them to stare at the file, lost in their own heads. It’s always worse when it’s a kid and Nathan is struggling to open the file again, so Dwight does it for him, scanning the text for anything that might jump out at him - no accelerant, that’s what he notices first. 

“It’s worth looking into first responders,” he murmurs, “In case this was a hero fantasy gone wrong. No gasoline, no lighter fluid...anyone have anything against her?”

Nathan snorts a laugh completely devoid of humor. “Yeah,” he tells Dwight. “Read it from the top. Really read it.”

Dwight glances at him with a frown before doing as directed. He scans through date of birth, parents’ names and ages, but then he backtracks and looks at her official name and date of birth, grimacing, admittedly not knowing what to say. It's a delicate subject to navigate.

“It could be something else,” Nathan says, his voice clipped, “But her parents told us she had been dealing with bullying. It’s not a stretch, Dwight. Someone could have done this to her. Someone else could be covering it up.”

It did take a little too long before the fire department made it to the scene, which strikes Dwight as suspicious. Haven isn’t a huge town. Something feels fishy and if Dwight trusts his gut, he knows there's more to this than some freak accident. “I don’t disagree,” he promises Nathan, “But are you thinking straight, right now?”

Nathan glances at him, visibly bristling. “I don’t mean if you’re capable of doing your job,” Dwight promises. “I mean, do you need a break? This is pretty brutal. Anyone would understand if you’d need to take a minute. We all do, sometimes.”

It occurs to Dwight that he doesn’t even know the victim’s name. He won’t call her Michael, at any rate. He won’t do her that disservice, so he starts frowning down at the letters standing out starkly on the page. Nathan sees him staring, his shoulders relaxing a little, in increments. “Delilah,” he mumbles. “She told her friends to call her Delilah.”

“Delilah,” Dwight repeats, his voice soft and solemn, both him and Nathan lapsing into silence, lost in their thoughts. “Fuck,” Dwight eventually says, running a hand through his hair. Rascal seems to sense his unease, burrowing his muzzle against Dwight’s thigh. “Alright. We’re leaving for lunch,” he insists, grabbing Nathan’s coat, “You need a breather. Come on, no arguing. That’s an order.”

Honestly, Dwight needs a breather too and his day has barely begun.

Nathan’s expression is raw when he nods and comes along, handing his keys to Dwight, not asking where they’re going once Dwight gets behind the wheel. He takes them to the café with those muffins Nathan always raves about and Dwight lets Nathan pick out three different flavors even though he ends up picking at them all as usual. He's tearing them to pieces while Dwight watches over a smoothie and a croissant. “Mango pineapple fusion,” he tells Nathan when he gets a raised eyebrow in response. “Out of this world. You should try it.”

It makes Nathan smile a little. It’s more than Dwight thought he’d be able to accomplish, so he doesn’t push and he doesn’t ask Nathan why he’s taking this so personally when deep down, Dwight already knows. He doesn’t ask a thing about the case. Instead, he tells Nathan all about this documentary he saw on TV the other night while Nathan feigns interest, his posture slowly relaxing, assuring Dwight that if nothing else, he’s at least easing the burden a little.

The next time Dwight sees Duke, Duke’s acting as if nothing is wrong, despite the lingering friction that props a metaphorical brick wall between them.

Dwight, despite knowing better, lets it slide. He gets in on the absurd joke of it, too - he greets Duke as if they haven’t spent more than an entire week not speaking and pointedly avoiding looking at each other, because despite his frustration, Dwight’s not actually looking to burn any more bridges, right now. He lets them both have the comfort and the bliss of ignorance, for a while, if only to avoid rocking the damn boat.

It makes Duke feel brave enough to attempt a tentative smile when he takes a break from talking to Nathan and Audrey, casually leaning his body in Dwight’s open doorway. It wasn’t meant as an invitation, he tells himself, trying his damnedest to believe it. Duke’s shadow is long and lean, his smile tiny and bashful when he clears his throat and pins Dwight with a look he can’t interpret. There's been a lot of that going around, lately - expressions Dwight can't decipher, glances he thinks he must have imagined.

“Tomorrow’s Friday. You want red wine or white?”

Some tension goes out of Dwight’s shoulders, letting them slump after an hour hunched over his desk. He’s almost grateful for the pretense at normalcy - god knows he wouldn’t know where to start if he had to approach Duke, first, with all the questions Dwight’s been sitting on until today. Dwight knows what to do on Friday nights with Duke, though. It’s a routine he misses and he can’t shoot Duke down just to be vindictive, even if the thought is tempting for a moment. Dwight is an adult, he reminds himself. Adults don't hold childish grudges, even when they're in the right.

Duke doesn’t really like wine that much, is the thing. He only ever brings it for Dwight’s benefit. It means something, the asking. “Red,” Dwight manages, nodding tightly, “It’ll pair well with the salmon.”

He misses cooking for someone else. It gets depressing to keep buying microwave meals for one, but it gets more depressing to stock up on fresh food that ends up going bad before Dwight can make use of it, his fridge going untouched for days at a time while he pours himself into his work. Cooking on Fridays was becoming a routine. He doesn’t want to give that up.

“Are we alright?”

Duke’s still standing in the doorway, his hands in his pockets. His face is cast in shadow and Dwight blinks, wondering for a moment if they’re actually going to talk about it, but in the end, Dwight is a coward. He doesn't want to do this now, here of all places. Figures Duke would box him in and force him to play this long con right alongside him. “Of course we are,” Dwight tells him, managing a small smile, “Why wouldn’t we be?”

That’s a loaded question. Dwight is almost desperate for Duke to ask another one. Instead, the two of them retreat to comfortable territory, where the lay of the land is familiar and nobody’s at risk of getting hurt. “Great,” Duke announces, tucking a stray lock of hair behind his ear, the gesture almost demure. “It’s a date.”

“It’s not,” Dwight murmurs to himself once Duke’s ducked back outside to talk to Nathan and Audrey, leaving Dwight alone and sighing deeply as he stares up at the ceiling. It’s not a date. That’s the issue.

Audrey’s drinking coffee, perched on the couch with a report balanced on her knees, pen held loosely in her fingers. It’s a rare, quiet day in Haven; so quiet that Dwight figures there’s no way it can last, but he’s hopeful anyway, glancing at the stack of books he’s let accumulate on top of his reports in the hopes of one day catching up. Maybe he’ll give Hemingway a go tonight, he thinks to himself, smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Sometimes, it's nice to just get away from reality for a little while.

Audrey clears her throat and Dwight glances up, shooting her a questioning smile. “For a guy that says he has no time to himself,” Audrey starts, “You always bring a book. I just noticed that.”

Dwight blinks and digests that statement before snorting a wry laugh. “Yeah,” he agrees, shrugging slightly, “I was never booksmart, but I always liked to read. Been meaning to catch up.”

“I feel like that’s a contradictory statement,” Audrey muses, putting her chin in her hand. “Not booksmart?” she questions, tilting her head. “You’re pretty handy. Never learned anything from a book?”

“Not really,” Dwight tells her, “Mostly I learned by doing. Trial and error. Had to work for it, that’s what the old man liked to say. It didn’t count if you didn’t put some real effort into figuring it out. Had its ups and downs,” he murmurs, “But I can’t complain. It kept me afloat for a while before I enlisted. Odd jobs do wonders when you could barely scrape your way to a high school diploma.”

Audrey’s eyebrows shoot up, something muted in her eyes. She takes the information dump in stride, half-smiling. “I can see that,” she agrees, “It’s pretty impressive, actually. You’re plenty smart,” she adds, “I just...can’t see you struggling in school, if I’m being honest.”

“I struggled plenty,” Dwight assures her, rubbing at his eyes, “Had a lot on my plate and not a lot of motivation. Typical small-town kid with exactly zero prospects and even less ambition. I guess I liked feeling useful. I liked knowing what to do with my hands.”

Audrey nods, an odd curve sitting in her mouth. “I don’t know if I was ever booksmart,” she offers, “Or if I am, I guess. It’s - it’s difficult. I feel like a blank slate with all this...downloaded knowledge, you know? Memories that aren’t mine. God,” Audrey laughs, “I don’t even know who I really am. Nothing I know or remember is even real.”

“You’re real.”

“I guess I am,” Audrey huffs, trying to laugh it off, “For now.”

“Hey,” Dwight pushes, meeting Audrey’s eyes, “You’re plenty real. I know who you are, for what it’s worth.”

“You wanna tell me?” Audrey asks, a thread of vulnerability to her voice, “Because I really don’t know. I feel like I’m grasping at straws, lately, trying to put it all together."

Dwight hums and averts his eyes briefly, letting Audrey breathe without the weight of his gaze on her. “Let's see,” he considers, “You’re a good person. A good cop. You got an intuition I wouldn’t bet against in my lifetime and you love your trashy romance novels-”

She laughs. Dwight takes the victory. “You hate silk,” Dwight continues, thinking back to the emerald green dress Audrey needed patched up, “Because it looks cute, but it does you no favors when you sweat, right? I can relate. You like your coffee black and you take risks for this town and for the people you care about and you do overtime on weekends because Nathan does and you don’t want to leave him alone.”

Audrey’s smile grows a little wider but a little more mournful, too. “And you do that,” Dwight adds, “Because you don’t know how much time you have left. I know that’s not easy.”

She nods, sighing “You’re people-smart,” with a little nod, “I gotta hand it to you, I didn’t think you noticed all that. Not about me.”

“Audrey,” Dwight says, “I notice you.”

Something vulnerable twitches across Audrey’s face, some shadow of longing and grief casting a shadow and dimming the light in her eyes. “I notice things,” Dwight goes on, “Because it’s my job. I don’t get noticed. Blending in was part of the deal, cleaning up Haven’s messes. I got used to reading people. But you, you’re easy. You say a lot without saying a word.”

Her smile goes from rueful to delighted, her back straightening. “That’s almost romantic,” Audrey chuckles, brushing her hair back behind her ears, “You notice me for me. I didn’t think anyone did.”

“I do,” Dwight promises, leaning back in his chair, “Nathan does. Duke does.”

“Yeah,” Audrey agrees, “But not like you do. You don’t love me like that. I think - is it awful to say it means more, because you don’t?”

Dwight laughs. “No,” he assures her, “I understand what you mean, though. I think it’s supposed to be a compliment,” he muses, “But it _is_ late and I’m only on my third cup of coffee, so it could be the caffeine deprivation speaking. Jesus, I need a nap or an Americano.”

“Me too,” Audrey groans, stretching her neck, “I cannot _wait_ for a warm bath and a glass of wine. Plus a trashy romance novel,” she allows. “What’s your poison?”

He hums, considering it. “Me and my couch,” Dwight decides, “Some Chinese takeout and reruns of Hoarders - helps me declutter,” he tells Audrey, laughing along with her, “And a glass of wine for me, too. I figure we deserve it. It’s been a tough few days.”

“Amen to that.”

Dwight never really had a chance to get to know Audrey before he was officially her boss and unofficially still following her lead, but Audrey Parker has never been an enigma to him the way she is to other people. Dwight doesn’t wonder about her past, doesn’t question her intentions - all he knows to base his opinion on is her actions and they’ve held up since the first day he met her. She’s always tried to do good. Dwight can’t hold her mistakes against her when she’s only ever tried to help.

As for mistakes, Dwight’s made plenty. He just made most of them before Haven, Maine, where he arrived with the hope of starting over with a clean slate. In a way, he and Audrey had that luxury handed to them, albeit in wildly different ways.

“You like to read,” Audrey yawns, “Any recommendations? See, I’m trying to branch out from my trashy romance collection-”

Rolling his eyes, Dwight huffs “Hey, I didn’t say I minded, did I? I’ve been known to pick up one or two of those, myself. Well,” he considers the question, thinking back to the novels he’s read in recent months, the collections gathering dust on his shelves and the snippets he’s read online, finally offering “Give Buddy Wakefield a go. Wordsmith if I ever heard one.”

“That’s a poet, isn’t it?”

“Audrey Parker,” Dwight drawls, “Are you telling me I don’t look like the type? It’s the twenty-first century. You ought to know better.”

She snorts, challenging him with a insistent “Well, give me a taste and I’ll consider it.”

Dwight doesn’t have to think long to come up with an example. He’s never been booksmart, he’ll maintain that to the grave, but some lines he reads and never entirely forgets. He clears his throat, a little self-conscious, but dutifully recites “I have realized that the moon did not have to be full for us to love it. That we are not tragedies stranded here beneath it," and Audrey looks out at the settling sun, her eyes bright.

Duke brings the red wine.

Dwight knows that Duke made the offer, but he can’t help the knee-jerk reaction of surprise and muted delight that wells in his gut. He laughs, low and taken aback as he grabs the bottle that’s passed to him with care, turning it in his hands to inspect the label. His surface level knowledge of wine and aging are telling him that Duke couldn’t have picked this up at the gas station on his way here.

“Fancy,” Dwight comments, raising an eyebrow. “All of this for little old me, huh?”

Shrugging, Duke says “Red pairs great with trashy TV and salmon. Besides, you like wine.”

“That I do,” Dwight agrees, gesturing for Duke to go ahead and sit down, both of them valiantly pretending that this isn't a little bit awkward. “Thanks.”

It’s an unspoken ritual, Friday nights, despite the bump in the road to get there. All things considered, Dwight’s Fridays used to be pretty empty before Duke came along and decided that he was going to drag Dwight into something resembling a social life and he can’t deny that he’s grateful for it, having the company. It's been strange, missing out on that company.

It had become a fixture, Duke splayed across the couch and cooing at Rascal while he'd pet his big head, dragging the big fluffy blanket across his lap and complaining that Dwight always keeps the house too cold. Despite the relative ease of navigating around Duke as usual, Dwight’s not able to relax entirely - he’s overthinking every interaction, careful not to touch Duke, careful not to let Duke catch on. He doesn’t want a second go at deluding himself into thinking he’s wanted through projection, so Dwight does the rational thing and keeps his carefully calculated distance of two feet, minimum.

“Popcorn?” Dwight asks, rattling the box to get Duke’s attention. “Or not?”

“I’m down,” Duke calls back to him, “Thanks, buddy.”

Dwight shakes his head, smiling ruefully. He’s never going to get Duke to call him by name, is he?

It takes a couple of minutes before he’s able to grab the bag out of the microwave before pouring it in the bowl, absently muttering a thank you when Duke comes back into the kitchen to grab them both a glass for the wine, Dwight trailing Duke with the bottle and the bowl securely held in his arms.

“You ready to have nightmares?” Duke cheerfully asks, waggling his eyebrows while they settle down on the couch together but apart, Dwight pouring the wine and situating the bowl of popcorn in the middle of the table. He leaves enough space between their bodies to avoid temptation.

Their hands brush briefly when they both go reaching for a handful of popcorn, though and it sends sparks up the length of Dwight’s arm. Shockwaves, really, after how long it’s been.

“Nightmares or not,” Dwight mutters, “I need to know what the hell the endgame is. For better or worse.”

“You and me both,” Duke mumbles, eyes glued to the screen. Dwight looks at him and then away, scratching Rascal lazily behind the ears when he bumps his head against Dwight’s thigh in a blatand demand for affection. It’s a new thing, Rascal wanting to be touched. Dwight feels a small smile building at the show of trust, knowing how hard the road has been to get here. Sometimes, he regrets knowing he’ll have to give Rascal up again, but Dwight’s an in-between stop: he’s nobody’s final destination. Not even the dog’s.

The wine is rich and sweet on his first assessment, the taste clinging behind Dwight’s teeth. He makes an appreciative noise and sees Duke glance at him with a grin, nodding in approval when he reaches for his own glass, his hand curling gracefully around the bottom of it. Duke’s got such graceful hands, Dwight thinks, trying to quiet the stirring in his chest, fighting an uphill battle already.

It’s silent for a while, neither of them feeling the need to speak while watching the screen as the rain falls harder and harder outside, muddying the driveway and soaking the bushes Dwight planted last spring. They discuss ordering pizza after the two of them realize Dwight completely forgot to check the expiry on the salmon and he only feels mildly guilty as Duke’s face falls, Dwight grudgingly placing the call halfway into the episode. In the meantime, Duke tosses the other half of the blanket across Dwight’s lap when neither of them are in the mood to get up and stoke the fire.

He wanted to make Duke salmon. It was supposed to be a _gesture._

“Been a long week?” Duke asks as he sees Dwight massaging his neck, trying to ease away some of the stiffness that's built over several days of hunching over desks - he really ought to check if those come in any other heights. He’s spent a few days breaking his back to try to trace the cause of the fires, too, by following gas lines and pipes inside hollowed-out walls and down in the sewer tunnels, trying to find answers and coming up empty. Delilah has been the first thing on his mind in the morning and the last thing he’s thought about before falling asleep since last week. It's hard to forget the sight of her corpse.

“Long month,” Dwight corrects, lowering his gaze to his lap. “Doing the best we can and we can’t seem to figure it out. Maybe we’re coming at this all wrong.”

Duke nods, humming quietly. “Don’t have to talk about it,” he offers, “But you can. If you want to.”

“Not tonight,” Dwight decides, his voice a little thin. “It’s Friday. Ask me again, tomorrow.”

Duke’s voice is a quiet mumble when he agrees “Tomorrow, then.”

This is what they aren’t good at: talking. Dwight has never known how to talk about the things that matter, but Duke is good at picking up on what Dwight always allows to go unsaid. He should be, at any rate, except lately, up has been down and down has been up and Duke hasn't been filling in the blanks for him. He’s not much of a talker, either, when it comes to subjects they both prefer to bury deep, but Dwight is grateful for the mutual understanding and the fact that pushing isn’t something that they do, even when they should.

Eventually, he might gather up enough strength to say the words out loud, but not tonight.

It’s a welcome distraction, sitting there and watching the screen and all the convoluted, exasperating events that are giving both him and Duke whiplash, judging by Duke’s wide-eyed surprise. He huffs and throws his head back, glancing at Dwight with a despairing “Next episode?” that just makes Dwight laugh, nodding as he takes a generous drink from his glass. Duke fumbles for the remote, skipping the commercial and tucking his feet beneath Dwight’s thigh with ease, Dwight shifting to accommodate. Flinching would give him away, he tells himself. There’s no reason to fuss over Duke trying to keep warm.

The two of them are halfway through the bottle by the time the pizza delivery arrives, a tired teenage boy handing the two boxes over to Dwight with admirable patience as the rain beats down on him and around him. Dwight makes sure to leave a good tip, hushing Rascal’s excited barking at having a stranger at the door. “You didn’t get any pineapple on mine, did you?” Duke asks despite knowing damn well Dwight didn’t - Duke was right there during the phone call, but the bickering lightens the mood and Dwight goes along with it.

“Pineapple is good for you,” Dwight maintains, smacking Duke’s thigh, his touch determinedly not lingering. “Heathen.”

“Back at you,” Duke laughs, as Dwight practically shovels his first slice into his mouth out of pure spite, “Your tastebuds must be crying right now.”

An hour later, with a few leftover slices of pizza going cold in the box, Duke stretches, sighs and announces “I should be heading home,” while showing absolutely no interest in actually getting up and hopping in his car. Dwight peers at him through sleep-heavy lids, swallowing down what’s left of the wine with a cough and then slowly wiping at his mouth. He settles more comfortably against the couch, tilting his head back and watching Duke’s expression, taking note of how he looks still and content right in this moment, the light playing across his cheekbones.

“You’re not leaving,” Dwight points out. “Company that good?”

He sees Duke smile as he turns his head slightly. “You know what,” Duke says, “It just so happens to be.”

Dwight laughs and it comes out sounding low and rough, his hand patting Duke’s ankle through the blanket. He’s a little too hot in all his layers, pushing his end of the blanket back towards Duke and unzipping the hoodie from his throat to his sternum, running a hand through his hair. It’s not a nervous habit so much as something to busy his hands. He doesn’t really know what to do with someone that wants to stay.

Duke’s got an elbow propped on the back of the couch, resting his chin on his hand. He observes Dwight for a minute, a solemn look on his face before he asks “You wanna know something, sasquatch?”

Dwight hums, hoping it sounds appropriately affirmative. His head is heavy, his thoughts a little clouded. He hasn’t had anything to drink in weeks, or maybe longer - he can’t recall the exact date, but Dwight doesn’t keep alcohol in the house, never knowing when he’s needed, not willing to risk getting a call while he’s two or three drinks deep. He always seems to end up going for a few drinks too many once he gets started. “Go ahead,” he murmurs, closing his eyes, tipping his head against the back of the couch. “What is it?”

The couch creaks under Duke’s weight when he moves. Dwight doesn’t question it, waiting for Duke to say something, startling the slightest bit when he feels a careful hand cup his jaw and a thumb landing on his cheek, brushing across his skin in gentle circles. “Duke,” he says, opening his eyes, “What are you doing?”

Duke smiles, his face shadowed. “You trust me,” he says, “Don’t you?”

At the heart of the question, there’s really only one answer. After everything, there’s only one answer. “Yeah,” Dwight agrees. “I do.”

“Good,” Duke murmurs, “Thank you for that.”

It registers a second too late, the fact that Dwight is being kissed. Duke’s mouth is warm and dry, his breath soft against Dwight’s lips, hand moving as he slips his fingers to the back of Dwight’s head, into his hair, scratching carefully against his scalp. It feels languid, being kissed this way, with Dwight’s eyes falling closed when the moment stretches and never seems to come to an end. He makes a noise that lands somewhere between a moan and a gasp, the sound unfamiliar to his own ears. Dwight can’t recall ever making that sound before, not with anyone and he's left reeling as his heart picks up speed inside the cage of his ribs.

Duke kisses him softly, chastely. He doesn’t make any attempt at deepening it, his knee nudging against Dwight’s, their noses bumping when he pulls back. Dwight opens his eyes and realizes that he can’t decipher the expression painting Duke’s face; it’s equal parts affection and regret and something that comes too close to fear for Dwight to be able to stand it. He has a sinking feeling that he knows where this is going. Duke’s heart isn’t in it. He got his taste and decided to head for greener pastures.

In any case, Duke’s leaving. Dwight can’t decide if it would have been better if Duke never came over in the first place or not.

“Sorry,” Duke tells him, sitting upright and getting to his feet. “I better head home. Opening shift tomorrow, you know how it is…”

“You’re the owner,” Dwight says a little dumbly, not entirely sure if he should protest, not knowing why he doesn’t push Duke for answers for what just happened. Duke’s warmth is still lingering on his lips. “You don’t have to go.”

“Yeah, I do,” Duke sighs, offering Dwight a small smile and a jaunty salute that feels unbearably distant, after what he just did. “I’ll see you around.”

Dwight watches him leave, his mouth still parted in leftover anticipation of being kissed. Rascal whines from the carpet, glancing back at him, shuffling closer when Dwight puts his head in his hands and starts to laugh incredulously.

He wakes up in the morning without a hangover and counts himself as incredibly lucky for that fact, considering that his phone is full of messages from Audrey asking him to meet her at the high school in case things go sideways with their apparent new suspect. Dwight is half-awake when he calls her to groggily ask for details, because this case has been at a standstill for so long that any information is practically worth gold. Dwight stumbles through the process of getting dressed with his phone held between his ear and his shoulder, listening to Nathan interjecting in the background while the sounds of the highway bleed through into the call.

“A kid?” Dwight asks, double-checking that they’re on the same page, “We think a kid did this to her?”

He’d almost forgotten, lost in his own little sorrows he couldn't quite drown last night. Dwight shakes his head, trying to focus, hopping into his jeans.

“Not a troubled kid, either,” Audrey tells him while he makes his way down the stairs, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Her voice sounds grave at the announcement, Nathan abruptly going quiet when she lays out the facts. “He wasn’t her biggest fan, to put it mildly. His uncle is a firefighter.”

“Checks out,” Dwight solemnly agrees, removing the phone from his ear to shrug into his jacket, whistling for Rascal to come along when he’s done with his breakfast. “You think he’ll try to start something if you guys walk in?”

There’s a brief, muted discussion between her and Nathan before Audrey comes back, her voice a little strained. “Probably not,” she tells him before amending, “Hopefully not. We’ve called the principal, got him pulled out of class. We’ve got him boxed in if he tries anything.”

Dwight gets himself in the car in what's practically record time. There's no sense in wasting precious minutes, now.

“Roger that,” Dwight mutters, hanging up after a moment and staring blankly through the windshield and making a valiant effort at trying to get himself together.

He’s got no right to be dwelling on last night’s events when lives could be on the line, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that something monumental happened, even if all it amounted to was a kiss and a clear, blunt rejection of anything more from Duke when he left. He needs his head clear - can't go into this distracted.

But Duke initiated. That’s where Dwight is stuck. He wonders if it was pity, maybe, that made Duke lean in with that expression, his stomach tying in knots at the idea, his own face pale in the mirror’s reflection. “Focus,” Dwight tells himself, hands a little clumsy as he gropes for his seatbelt, going over the details Audrey gave him for a second time, wondering how a kid could set another kid on fire - how any human being could do it to anyone else, really.

“Christ,” he scoffs, slowly shaking his head, “What the hell is the world coming to?”

Rascal sighs deeply. “Yeah,” Dwight laughs, even if the sound is devoid of any real humor. “It’s going to be a long day.”


End file.
